In October 2025, Ancient embarked on an intensive, three-city journey through the heart of U.S. innovation: **SF Tech Week 2025 (San Francisco), **LA Tech Week 2025 (Los Angeles) and **Austin Tech Week 2025 (Austin). With our U.S. leadership—Drew Orsinger, Emiliano Cambiasi—and myself (Director of Sales) on the ground, we engaged startups, VCs, mid-market enterprises and technology executives to refine and extend Ancient’s nearshore, AI-powered staffing and automation value proposition.
For digital transformation leaders, this journey offers three key take-aways: (1) the developer ecosystem is now AI-first; (2) enterprise automation is moving from cost-cutting to productivity-enabled growth; and (3) funding and scale-up dynamics are shifting toward profitable, outcome-driven models. Below, we unpack the insights and strategic implications of each city—followed by how Ancient is leveraging them to accelerate value for clients.
San Francisco: The Early-Stage & VC Epicentre
In San Francisco, the ecosystem reaffirmed its global primacy. Official listings show SF Tech Week running 6–12 October. One Business Insider piece captured the scale: more than 1,500 events across the week, with major investor momentum in AI and startup funding.
What we observed
•The density of founders and VCs remains unmatched: early-stage companies treating “raising next round” as a baseline initiative.
•A dominant theme: AI-First startups and the search for talent, infrastructure and nearshore delivery models that can accelerate time-to-value. As one investor commented, “over 90% of our companies were very AI-focused.”
•Corporates and growth-stage SaaS companies are in acquisition, M&A and joint GTM mode—looking not only for product features but for teams that can integrate quickly and deliver automation outcomes.
•In the developer community, the expectation of working with AI-powered tools is now baseline. For Ancient, this aligns perfectly: our engineering teams are natively trained in AI methodology.
•Sponsoring our SF event produced high-impact meetings: from family offices to VCs exploring AI investments, to founders seeking nearshore engineering scale.
Strategic Implications for Transformation Leads
•If you are a Head of Transformation or CTO in a mid-sized enterprise looking to embed AI, the challenge isn’t “should we start?” but rather “how do we access talent, tools and delivery models fast enough to stay competitive?”
•Nearshore partners who bring not just bodies, but AI-enabled engineers and methodologies will win the trust of these VCs/founders first—and you can tie into that supply pipeline.
•When building or acquiring AI-first features, embedding delivery speed and team integration is critical: time-to-value matters as much as technology.
Los Angeles: Media, CPG, Automation and Strategic Partnerships
Moving to Los Angeles (week of 13–19 October) we entered a different flavour of innovation: growth-stage startups, media/CPG verticals, and automation as a strategic lever.
What we observed
•At our LA-sponsored event (with partner NachoNacho ), we met numerous media and CPG startups that are not simply building products—they are thinking about AI-driven data platforms and “automation engines” as differentiators.
•The VC and investor presence remains strong—but discussion is more about go-to-market, scale, partnerships, and less about seed-round hype. For example, coverage of LA Tech Week emphasised go-to-market sessions and AI-search as growth enablers.
•Enterprises in CPG/media are explicitly looking for nearshore and augmentation partners who can deliver productivity uplift—not simply cost-savings.
•The vibe is more collaborative: strategic alliances, outsourcing models, co-engineering partnerships, pipeline creation rather than fundraising alone.
Strategic Implications for Transformation Leads
•If you oversee digital operations in a media or CPG enterprise, your priority is to integrate automation into core processes (e.g., marketing operations, supply chain analytics, personalization engines) and build teams that operate at the velocity of AI.
•The nearshore model should go beyond staff augmentation: it must incorporate “AI-engineered delivery” — where your partner brings methodology, tools and outcomes—not just seats.
•Strategic partnerships born out of events like LA Tech Week are ideal channels for enterprise sourcing: scan for startups in adjacent verticals, invite alliance options, and embed nearshore teams into those ecosystems.
Austin: Enterprise-Scale Delivery, Nearshore Execution
Our final leg—Austin, week of 20–24 October—served as Ancient’s U.S. headquarters and the centre for enterprise-scale engagements where automation meets delivery.
What we observed
•The clientele in Austin and the broader Texas region is almost exclusively enterprise or large growth companies: looking to automate manual processes, embed AI features in legacy systems, and scale engineering teams with nearshore support.
•In meetings with our global CEO, Emiliano Cambiasi, we mapped pipelines where Ancient’s nearshore, AI-powered engineers and automation modules could plug into defined workflows—resulting in measurable uplift rather than speculative output.
•The framing is now about “outcome” not just “outputs”: e.g., enabling seller productivity with AI-chatbots, enabling manufacturing line insights via agentic systems, or enabling financial operations via embedded automation.
•The message to enterprises: we’re not just an outsourcing partner — we’re a strategic enabler of transformation.
Strategic Implications for Transformation Leads
•When you lead digital transformation in an enterprise environment, you need partners who operate as delivery arms for your vision—not as vendors. The metric is “did we materially improve productivity/ROI” rather than “did we staff x engineers.”
•Nearshore models (LATAM-based or otherwise) anchored by AI methodology and augmentation give you leverage: lower cost, timezone alignment and talent pipeline.
•Treat event-driven outreach (e.g., Tech Week conversations) as sourcing mechanism for partnerships, not just networking—capture intent meetings, build co-delivery plans, and convert early.
Cross-Cutting Insights & Strategic Framework
● Developer Ecosystem: AI-First is Non-Negotiable
Across all three cities, the expectation that engineering teams work with and build on AI-first tools is now standard. A recent study found that while enterprise adoption is still gradual, “most users welcomed automation, especially for tedious, manual tasks … provided the benefits were clear and guardrails in place.”
For transformation leads, this means your hiring, augmentation and partner strategies must emphasise engineers who can deliver with AI, not just code. At Ancient, we’ve embedded this into our internal methodology.
● Automation Momentum: Productivity Over Head-Count Cuts
The narrative has shifted. Rather than automation = job cuts, the new narrative is automation = productivity uplift, enabling teams to achieve more. In Los Angeles especially, media and CPG companies were exploring this mindset shift.
For you as a transformation leader: focus on automation projects where ROI is definable, where your partner can deliver “outcome” (e.g., % improvement, cost avoidance, time saved) and where nearshore augmentation supports your internal teams rather than replaces them.
● Fundraising and Scale-Up Are Alive — But Discipline Matters
In San Francisco we saw the “AI gold rush” vibe: founders and VCs alike talk about opportunity. Yet the smarter investors are asking for profitable traction, disciplined growth and outcome orientation. Business Insider captured the sentiment:
“There’s probably never been a better time to be a founder than right now.”
But also: not every company will win; the winners will be those with margin, methodology and scale.
For enterprises: partner with scale-up providers who have delivery discipline, governance and the ability to integrate into your systems—not just hype.
How Ancient Converts These Insights Into Value
•Nearshore AI-Powered Engineering Teams: We deploy engineers trained in AI methodology, fluent in English, aligned with U.S. timezones, delivering both product features and automation modules.
•Outcome-Driven Automation Modules: Rather than delivering “tasks completed,” we focus on measurable business outcomes: e.g., sales-productivity uplift, operations-cycle time reduction, supply-chain throughput improvement.
•Strategic Event-Driven Pipeline: Our presence in SF, LA and Austin allowed us to launch dialogues with VCs, founders and enterprise clients—building partnerships, sourcing talent and identifying joint go-to-market opportunities.
•Tailored Engagements by Vertical:
•In SaaS/startups (SF): we support rapid feature-build, AI-embedded products.
•In media/CPG (LA): we provide data-platform + automation + nearshore staffing to scale operations.
•In enterprise (Austin): we focus on automation of manual processes, staff augmentation, productivity uplift, and outcomes.
Conclusion: The Time Is Now for Transformation Leaders
The race is on. Whether you are the Head of Transformation, VP of Engineering or Digital Officer of a scale-up SaaS, the message is clear—from San Francisco to Los Angeles to Austin:
•Talent must be AI-enabled.
•Automation must deliver productivity and measurable impact.
•Delivery models must integrate nearshore partners who act as extensions of your team.
•Fundraising, scale and innovation are alive—but discipline, outcome-orientation and execution matter more than ever.
Ancient is uniquely positioned to serve this moment: as a nearshore partner rooted in Latin America, delivering engineers who think and act AI-first, aligned with U.S. business rhythm, equipped for speed and focused on outcomes.
If you’re leading the transformation agenda in your organisation—you’re not just looking for code, you’re looking for impact. Let’s talk about how Ancient can plug into your journey and accelerate the value.
Ready to explore? Reach out to begin a discovery call. Let’s build together.
Eduardo Muller
June 11, 2025
April 28, 2025
