The Autonomous Economy
is where billions of Agents + billions of Robots execute economic work end-to-end
and securely transact.
Untapped Ventures is a pre-seed and seed AI fund built around a single conviction: that AI is moving from assisting human work to executing it end-to-end, and that the most consequential companies of the next decade are being founded right now, in categories most investors haven't yet defined.
Hear the Thesis Directly
In this episode of the Agentic podcast, George Bandarian breaks down the Autonomous Economy thesis in full — what it is, why now, where the opportunities are, and how Untapped is positioning Fund II to capture them before consensus.
"The question isn't whether AI will replace workflows. It's which companies will own the new ones."
"We back founders who see a category before it exists - that's the only way to be first."
OUR THESIS
Why the
Autonomous Economy changes everything
We are at an inflection point. For decades, software made humans more productive. What's emerging now is categorically different. AI that doesn't assist work — it executes it.
We call this the Autonomous Economy. It is the shift from tools that augment human effort to systems that perform economic work end-to-end — autonomously, continuously, and at scale.
The companies being built at this inflection — at pre-seed and seed, before the category is consensus — are where we concentrate our capital and conviction.
The Pillars of the Autonomous Economy
01
Autonomous Intelligent Agents
Key technologies
- LLMs and generative AI
- Multi-agent systems (MAS)
- Agentic workflows
Transformed sectors
- Knowledge work automation
- Service-as-software (SaaS evolution)
02
Physical Autonomy
& Robotics
Key technologies
- Computer vision & sensor fusion
- Edge computing
- Advanced robotics
Transformed sectors
- Logistics & supply chain
- Manufacturing & construction
- Agriculture
03
Secure Economic Infrastructure
Key technologies
- Web3 and smart contracts
- Identity and permissions
- Audit & compliance rails
Transformed sectors
- Automated procurement & billing
- Secure autonomous transactions
- Verifiable supply chain records
04
Autonomous Enterprise Operations
Key technologies
- Agentic process automation
- Predictive operations models
Transformed sectors
- Finance & insurance
- Procurement & supply chain
- Compliance & security ops
The AE Value Stack: Where We Invest
Autonomous Experiences
Autonomous enterprise apps | AI consumer OS | Agentic commerce | Autonomous science
Machine Workforce Layer
Agent hiring | Task marketplaces | Workforce scheduling | Robot fleet mgmt | Skills registry
Autonomy Control Plane
Identity/permissions | Policy-as-code | Eval/drift | Audit receipts | Rollback/kill-switch | Agent FinOps
Agent Runtime & Orchestration
Planning | Tool calling | Memory | Workflow graphs | Sandboxes / simulation
Autonomous Enterprise Operations
Models (frontier + DSLMs) | Data | Inference infra | Edge compute | Energy-aware routing
