Venture capitalists have traditionally channeled their investments towards startups that leverage innovative technologies to either disrupt existing industries or create entirely new business sectors.

However, some venture capitalists are beginning to color outside the traditional lines of investment. They're shifting their focus from startups to more established companies like call centers, accountancy firms, and other professional service firms. They then optimize these established companies with artificial intelligence, making them more efficient in serving a larger clientele through automation.

This type of investment strategy, often compared to private equity roll-ups, is being adopted by firms like General Catalyst, Thrive Capital, and individual investor, Elad Gil. With this as a fresh asset class, General Catalyst alone has already supported seven such companies. One of them is Long Lake, a startup platform for community management that has secured $670 million in funding in less than two years of operation.

While this is a relatively new strategy, a handful of other venture capital firms have expressed their interest to TechCrunch. They are all considering stepping into this new investment model.

Included in this exploratory group is Khosla Ventures, a firm with a reputation for making bold, early bets on groundbreaking technologies that often take time to deliver.

Indeed, this hybrid of private equity and venture capital approach to investing could also benefit the pool of AI startups. This is because marrying mature businesses with cutting-edge AI technology provides these startups with an opportunity to directly serve large, established clients.

According to Samir Kaul, general partner at Khosla Ventures, this kind of direct access to customers could solve a significant problem faced by many AI startups, notably their struggle in securing customers independently. With its burgeoning growth and the historically lengthy sales cycles common in selling to enterprises, this issue is prevalent in many AI startups.

Although excited to investigate AI roll-up investments, Khosla Ventures understands that prudence is necessary. Kaul acknowledges the responsibility of managing other people's money and the importance of maintaining the firm's robust return performance. The firm aims to test the waters with some deals to evaluate the potential returns before possibly raising funds for an investment vehicle specifically tailored for this strategy.

For future purchases, Khosla Ventures may want to collaborate with a PE-style firm if their initial investments show encouraging outcomes. "We wouldn’t do it alone, we don’t have that expertise,” Kaul stated.