Phil Libin exits General Catalyst for All Turtles, a new AI “startup studio” with several GC-backed AI bot startups joining as foundation members
Context & Ripple Effects
Phil Libin had spent 2016 at General Catalyst leading seed rounds for bot companies like Butter.ai and Growbot, building a thesis that conversational AI was the next platform shift. The exit converts that thesis from an investment strategy inside a venture fund into a dedicated vehicle: All Turtles launches as a startup studio, and several of the GC-backed bot startups he seeded become its foundation members rather than portfolio companies.
First-order effects
- General Catalyst loses a partner who was its most active bot investor, while the bot startups he backed — including Butter.ai and Growbot — gain a studio home whose incentives are tied to building companies, not just funding them.
Second-order effects
- The studio model competes directly with funds for deal flow: instead of bidding on finished startups, All Turtles originates them, which pressures traditional VCs to offer earlier, more hands-on support to AI founders.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, AI company formation migrates from fund-and-portfolio structures toward founder-led studios that concentrate capital and talent around a small number of created companies — a trajectory the corpus echoes years later when Humans& raises a $480M seed from Nvidia and Jeff Bezos and transformer startups poach scientists from Big Tech, concentrating resources around named builders.
The trend: AI startup formation is shifting from traditional VC funds toward founder-led studios that bundle capital, talent, and company creation under one roof.