With venture totals decreasing year-over-year in key markets like the United States, and concern that venture firms themselves are struggling to secure more capital, founders might be anxious. After all, if private-market investment doesn’t improve in the coming quarters, we could be headed for yet another year of declines in total startup investment in 2024.
Some startups are endeavoring to address the slowdown, including Intently, which is introducing a new service this week called Founder AI. The service’s premise is straightforward: It will examine your personal data, comprehend your connections, categorize those connections based on their own background in terms of what they have developed, and formulate a few suggested paths to facilitate warm introductions to investors from your existing founder network.
The objective is to pinpoint the best approaches to reach the most relevant investors, recognizing that most individuals won’t readily make introductions for you. That’s why it's crucial to ensure you are targeting potential investors who may prove beneficial.
Beneath the surface, the service is somewhat more intricate; to the extent that Intently CEO and co-founder Slava Solonitsyn informed TechCrunch that his team initially developed Founder AI. as a services business to gain a deep understanding of what founders possess, require, and desire, only later transforming that into a product with the assistance of AI.
It's not just AI magic, though. The new service from the Intently team utilizes vector search to discern relevance, which, to my understanding of vectors — admittedly only lukewarm — seems logical. However, it refrains from attempting to vectorize everything. During the development phase, Solonitsyn and fellow co-founders Dmitry Starodubtsev and Mika Melchanka had to narrow their focus to ensure they were utilizing the vectors that truly mattered, as incorporating all possible data points would be excessively costly.
The company highlighted that it has secured only single-digit millions in funding to date, including a $3.3 million round last spring. The startup aims to secure additional capital, potentially in the range of $5 million to $10 million. Naturally, the success of Founder AI in the hands of founders will play a crucial role in determining how much capital Intently can attract.
However, fundraising isn’t the ultimate goal of its efforts. Instead, the startup intends to expand its technology into new areas over time, such as business development. Given the size of the market for sales tools, this isn’t an entirely surprising idea. Nonetheless, having software that can intelligently analyze your connections and assist you in making communication decisions could genuinely help reduce overall digital communication by preventing wasteful messages. That would benefit everyone involved.
Intently, a Y Combinator-backed company, may witness early adoption of Founder AI among its peers in the accelerator program. We'll be closely monitoring whether its new service becomes a sought-after tool for founders — and whether they're willing to pay for it. Intently plans to charge $99 per month for the tool, with additional fees if the customer desires access to more data sources for their connection-hunting endeavors. This pricing model seems fair; the more data a customer seeks to leverage, the higher the computational costs, hence the higher the price. All in all, if Intently's product proves effective, we may witness an uptick in overall venture activity in the market, right? Talk about a smart utilization of AI from a startup standpoint.
Some startups are endeavoring to address the slowdown, including Intently, which is introducing a new service this week called Founder AI. The service’s premise is straightforward: It will examine your personal data, comprehend your connections, categorize those connections based on their own background in terms of what they have developed, and formulate a few suggested paths to facilitate warm introductions to investors from your existing founder network.
The objective is to pinpoint the best approaches to reach the most relevant investors, recognizing that most individuals won’t readily make introductions for you. That’s why it's crucial to ensure you are targeting potential investors who may prove beneficial.
Beneath the surface, the service is somewhat more intricate; to the extent that Intently CEO and co-founder Slava Solonitsyn informed TechCrunch that his team initially developed Founder AI. as a services business to gain a deep understanding of what founders possess, require, and desire, only later transforming that into a product with the assistance of AI.
It's not just AI magic, though. The new service from the Intently team utilizes vector search to discern relevance, which, to my understanding of vectors — admittedly only lukewarm — seems logical. However, it refrains from attempting to vectorize everything. During the development phase, Solonitsyn and fellow co-founders Dmitry Starodubtsev and Mika Melchanka had to narrow their focus to ensure they were utilizing the vectors that truly mattered, as incorporating all possible data points would be excessively costly.
The company highlighted that it has secured only single-digit millions in funding to date, including a $3.3 million round last spring. The startup aims to secure additional capital, potentially in the range of $5 million to $10 million. Naturally, the success of Founder AI in the hands of founders will play a crucial role in determining how much capital Intently can attract.
However, fundraising isn’t the ultimate goal of its efforts. Instead, the startup intends to expand its technology into new areas over time, such as business development. Given the size of the market for sales tools, this isn’t an entirely surprising idea. Nonetheless, having software that can intelligently analyze your connections and assist you in making communication decisions could genuinely help reduce overall digital communication by preventing wasteful messages. That would benefit everyone involved.
Intently, a Y Combinator-backed company, may witness early adoption of Founder AI among its peers in the accelerator program. We'll be closely monitoring whether its new service becomes a sought-after tool for founders — and whether they're willing to pay for it. Intently plans to charge $99 per month for the tool, with additional fees if the customer desires access to more data sources for their connection-hunting endeavors. This pricing model seems fair; the more data a customer seeks to leverage, the higher the computational costs, hence the higher the price. All in all, if Intently's product proves effective, we may witness an uptick in overall venture activity in the market, right? Talk about a smart utilization of AI from a startup standpoint.