Season 13 Finale: Founders Flip the Script

I’m Josh Muccio, welcome to the season 13 finale. The culmination of 11 pitches and the diligence that followed after the show.

Season 13 had a whole Folio of startups.

From weird shaped batteries to sleek bike helmets, Italian barbers to Midwestern restaurateurs, smart shoes to smarter students. Let’s break them down. 

It’s time to pop drop and Lockstop. These founders have an Aura … Finance about them. They’ve built something Material, even KAV…alier. And we’re going to Science on Call them up. Grab a Sundae and settle in for the Season Finale. It’s a Jungle out there. 

I’m not going to lie, this season was… a little strange. From founders not taking VCs money…

Jesse: I would like to at least commit 50k.
Michael: I absolutely hate to say this, but we've left the 50k checks on the table. 

To founders not taking VCs money… 

Anastasia: But Elizabeth, is that kind of the, your final offer? Because 7 million is a little bit lower valuation than what we will probably close this round at. 

To founders not taking our money!

Josh: When are you going to take our money?
Cathy: [laughter] I think soon, which is good. 

She still hasn’t taken it! 

When we originally recorded these pitches, and I heard all the founders playing hardball. I kind of shrugged it off… but as the season wore on, it became clear that these founders were playing a different game. They were building with conviction and refusing to play by VC rules.

Mike: if you can't communicate, then you may be one of those ones that miss out on the biggest opportunity. When we hit big and you say, Hey, I can drop in $10 million. I'm a be like, well keep that check for another founder who appreciates poor communication

Julian: Jesse was like, I would highly prefer if you had a lead first. And then I was like, I would highly prefer if you invested now versus later. 

Andy: We don't tell stories, like, we live this, we do this work. We're about proving stuff, and so we don't tell tales. We talk about signed revenue, we talk about revenue that comes in the door every month. it's how you run a real business. 

Anastasia: I'm so sorry, VCs listening, but you're such a waste of time.

Josh: It sounds like you're throwing a little bit of shade at the West coast VCs. 

Andy: No. 

Lisa: How do you guys feel about Florida VCs? 

Andy: You know… //

What’s funny is that last season, the VCs were all about investing in founders tearing down broken systems. And this season, founders seemed hell bent on taking on another broken system: venture capital itself.

The question is… how’s that going to turn out for them?

The season 13 grand finale is coming up right after this. We’ve got rapid fire updates, four deep dives with founders, and if you’re the type of person who likes to throw down your own money, we’ve got a deal for you at the end.

Welcome back. We kicked off the season with Mike Burton’s pitch for Lockstop. A super secure bike lock that turns every ratty bike rack around town into a free place to park.

Mike: We turn the existing infrastructure into these data rich mobility hubs. 

Will: How do some of like the Citi Bikes of the world impact your business? 

Michael: we do now threaten a lot of those micromobility solutions like scooters and bikes, because 53 percent of Americans own a bicycle. 

Jesse: In my mind, it sounds like you're leaving a lot of money maybe on the table 

Will: What's the revenue in five years?

Michael: Five years, what we're projecting right now is 60 million. 

Jesse: We, we could be a significant investor in the round like, I would like to at least commit 50k. 

Michael: I absolutely hate to say this, especially on YouTube, but we've left the 50k checks on the table. So we don't allow any investments under 100k. 

When Mike turned down Jesse’s 50k commitment, he thought he could still win him over for a lead check after the show. On their diligence call, Jesse ended by saying he wanted to “stay close to this.” 

Mike followed up with Jesse twice, but never heard back. And when we realized they were on very different pages about what “staying close to this” meant, we asked Mike to jump on a call.

Lisa: Josh is coming. I think he is coming. Are you coming? 

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm coming. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Mike: That helps to have the founding team all living in the same house. 

Josh: So, I gotta ask you. Where do you think Jesse is at? 

Mike: Well, I obviously have no idea because he has not responded back to my calls. I feel like I'm that chubby Mike Burton again trying to get my first date. Where I'm like, Hey, you know, you're cute. And then it's like, nope, not, not happening. I felt like everything was good there. And then I don't know. 

Lisa: So, can I preface whatever you're about to share? 

Josh: What are you -

Lisa: I feel like you're going to dive in and I want to like, ease in

Mike: This is going to be a bad conversation. I can tell we if have to ease into… you don't ease into good news. So that's, that's good. I'm prepared. 

Lisa: We've been like working on your episode and as we're reading through the tape of your call with Jesse afterwards, I realized that Jesse says, I want to stay close to this. And I'm like, Oh, he is out right now. 

Josh: I want to stay close to this is VC speak for I'm out, but I don't want to miss out if your company takes off. What he wants you to do is come back with either more traction in the fundraise or more traction in the business itself. 

Mike: Yeah. This is my first like kind of rodeo, right? So I mean, I could get it wrong, but it's like coming into it and then not giving just a solid like, Oh, you know, we're out, come to us later, then in my mind, like you're out for good. You know what I mean? That's kind of the way that I think of it. It's like, Oh, well, you know, we want to stay close in case this is a rocket ship. But at that point, I'm like, cool. If we're a rocket ship, then we're not going to have issues with other investors. So, you know, kind of miss the boat opportunity. Is that the wrong way to look at it? 

Lisa: [sighs]

Josh: You never want to burn any bridges. 

Mike: Oh, I'm not going to be negative about it. Yeah. 

Lisa: Right. So. This is Jesse's normal way of how he stays close to a company, is he puts in the 50k check, so he can stay close and follow it. And so, that's what he wanted to do with you. But then, when you said, no, 50k checks, now he's like, how am I going to stay close to it if I'm not invested in it? I don't know if that helps explain this

Mike: No, yeah, it absolutely does. And I think as a founder, like, every day you look back on one, I’m like, dang, did I put my foot in my mouth there? Which is okay, you know, like we make mistakes or whatnot. I think if he would have just communicated that, then we'd be like, cool, man, you know, we understand that. 

Lisa: Now knowing all of this would you have taken the 50k check?

Mike: Yeah, if I'd have known that, I probably would have taken the 50k. I mean, I think, you know, I'm a negotiator, so I'm always going to push for more, 

Mike: Maybe I can crawl my way back and be like, Hey, you know, we've come back and kind of sharpen the pencil here. Re evaluated our raise strategy and we'll accept the $50K if that's what we need to do. You know, my number one job is not to have my ego stand in the way. So even if he has the opportunity or if he doesn't respond to me after that, then I think like doors closed, you know, like slip my note back with no checks in the boxes.

Josh: Yeah. That's great. 

Mike: I gotta, I gotta make sure I find someone to invest in this so that way I get the pitch in there with me, even if it's for 10 bucks. 

Lisa: I, even if it's for 10 bucks. 

Josh: Just so you know, if the price for this round ends up anywhere around a five, our check sizes out of our fund are 50k. 

Mike: Okay. I would bring you guys on for 50k no matter what. Like I can say that. Oh, that's my co founder. 

Clayton: Hey, what's up guys? I've heard a lot about y'all. 

Lisa: Awesome. Well, thanks Mike. Um, it's been a pleasure. Yeah. 

Josh: It's great to meet you too, Clayton. 

Clayton: It’s great to meet y'all. Take care. 

Mike: Alright, see ya.

After this call, we thought Mike was going to email Jesse again to patch things up.

But when we caught up with him a few months later… 

Josh: Did you end up going back to Jesse? 

Mike: I didn't, you know, I did not go back to Jesse, and some people may argue that I probably should. But what we found is the people that see the vision. And they hop in right away, those are our people. And we'd rather spend the time finding those people rather than others that are more critical and skeptical that is this a reality? 

Josh: Sure. 

Mike: The folks where we don't have to answer a lot of those questions, seems like the ones that we wanna partner with at this stage. 

Josh: are these like angel investors, mainly?

Mike: yeah, pretty much. So, we've taken an additional 50 K and we have a line of sight from two separate investors right now, 150 to 200 a piece. 

Josh: So what ended up happening with the round as a whole? Did you stop raising from VCs? 

Mike: Yeah, you know, we dialed back on the vc, it's the time investment, right. You know, being a small team, we had to make a decision, like do we wanna raise capital for a business that we haven't had time to manage that? Or do we wanna focus on the business, understand the value that we're creating, and continue to go to market and allow people to come to us. And that's exactly what's happened. You know, the show's been ridiculously meaningful. The number of LinkedIn messages that I've gotten from, not just all around the country, but all around the world that say like, Hey, I would love to introduce you with a good friend of mine who's the director of climate here. Now we're making a, a lot of inroads with states kind of in the north of the country here that really have values that align with the pillars of our business. 

Josh: So the money you were trying to raise on our show? Like, you don't really need it now? Is that what you're saying? 

Mike: Yeah, you know, I think you, I think you could always use the capital, right? Uh, like yeah, we, we would definitely appreciate capital, but I think what that's taught us is not having a tremendous amount of capital in the coffers requires you to be ridiculously resourceful. You know, being a founder, it's often what you have in your pocket, you know, bubble gum wrapper, and a paperclip, and go build a business. At this stage, if we had that amount of capital, would we grow faster? Absolutely. But then would we use some of that capital to cover some pain points? My presumption would be yes. And we've had the ability to see other founders at that stage who've taken on a large amount of capital in the front end, and then they've used capital to solve problems rather than intelligent design or just sweat equity. And so we now have used sweat equity to solve problems, develop a product that now we know has a place in the market. 

Josh: It's interesting that you're talking about not taking too much capital, being an advantage. But it was you that set the minimum at a hundred thousand dollars. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Josh: On our last call, it sounded like you regretted not taking the 50 K check from Jesse.

Mike: Yeah. You know, I think I did at first

Josh: But it sounds like you've changed your mind. 

Mike: Yeah. You know, I did. And I think that's, you know, it's kind of like the new kid complex, right? You go to a new school and you just wanna make friends with anyone because that's a friend. And having a friend's better than having no friends at all. But regardless if it's an investor or a friend, like trust is what relationships are built on. And I think for me, if I email you, I expect you to email me back. And so if one person can’t establish that trust in the beginning, Mmm. You know, it's kind of like dating, right? If someone does something on that first date and you're like, man, that's so core against who I represent, I'm probably not gonna go on a second date with them. When we hit big and you say, Hey, I can drop in $10 million. I'm like, we'll keep that check for another founder who appreciates poor communication. You know, and, and, and that's no knock on anyone. Not just… 

Josh: Throwing shade. 

Mike: Yeah, yeah. No, it's, no, it's no knock on Jesse. That's the status quo. And in no other world do you do business like that. 

Josh: There's two themes we're seeing this season. One is founders turning down checks on our show. And founders getting ghosted by VCs. 

Mike: Mm-hmm. 

Josh: And in your episode you get both. 

Mike: I love it. I, you know, it's all about the experience, right? You wouldn't remember these moments if they went off without anything fun happening. So 

Josh: Just trying to be memorable on our show. I appreciate that Michael

Mike: That’s it 

Josh: You're walking in this like gray area in our process, Mike Burton. 

Mike: I like the gray area. 

Josh: You're in it solidly 

Mike: Good.

Josh: 'cause the way our fund works is we obviously deal source from the show, and then we use the diligence from the VCs on our show to help us stress test our diligence on a deal. And so in a case like this after the show, it's like, okay, it didn't work out with Jesse, but like you're still raising from other VCs and we can like piggyback off of their diligence. 

Lisa: But you’re not raising from VCs 

Josh: I'm really bullish on you. Lisa's really bullish on you, but there's no VCs for us to like, co diligence with. 

Lisa: Well, there's a few different things I'm thinking about this deal. First, my thesis is like we invest in really great humans because I think that they make great leaders that will build great companies. And so just hearing you talk about relationships. That makes me think you are a great leader who can build a great company.

Josh: Not to disagree with you, 'cause I get the same vibes, but like - 

Lisa: ooh, disagree with me. Yes. 

Josh: Like you had, I guess, an opportunity to build a relationship with Jesse and got offended that he didn't respond to your emails. 

Mike: Not offended, but it's really difficult to imagine if when you're first dating someone and you're like, Hey, had a great time tonight. And three weeks later they're like, “oh! me too.” You know, like that you can't build relationship like that, relationship requires communication. 

Josh: Fair point. I'll let you continue, Lisa. 

Lisa: Okay, so my second point is, Elizabeth says this a lot talking about if you come in trying to raise this amount, but you can't do it. We still wanna know that you can do something with the amount that you do raise. And so I think that obviously shows the scrappiness of the team to be able to take a few 100K and still build something. And also the fact that you're a hardware company and you have devices deployed is insane. like that does not compute. 

Josh: Yeah. I, I really respect your approach, Mike, and the way you're building this business with conviction and purpose. And I, I think my only concern about your, hey, this VC's not responding to me, so I'm not gonna prioritize them 'cause they're not prioritizing me. Like I totally understand that approach, but I worry that if that's your strategy long term, like you're gonna whittle down the number of VCs you're able to work with. Because so many of the best VCs are drowning in email, and they are notoriously bad. Some of them are good. You're right, and like you can work with them, but -

Mike: Those are the ones we're looking for. We've received a ton of nos, but all of those have been communicated back to us, and those investors have also been willing to say, Hey, here's what made me feel uncomfortable. You know, It's usually hardware and so, or selling to the government. So it's no knock on VC as a whole. But it's the ability to communicate. And if you can't communicate, then you may be one of those ones that miss out on the biggest opportunity because the only thing you do was failed to treat that person with the same level of respect that, you would expect from them. And I think that's it.

Josh: Yeah. Mike, do you think, one or two of your city partners would be willing to jump on a diligence call with us? 

Mike: Yeah. Let me ask one of our closest I'll get with her and see if she'd be interested in it. I can't imagine she wouldn't 

And she was! We talked to Kara from the Parks and Rec department in Rogers, AK. And decided to invest $50k in Lockstop at a $5 million valuation cap. Partially because we like the business, and partially because we really like Mike. Yes Mike’s a first time founder, building in Northwest Arkansas, and he’s a little green, but one thing I love to see in a founder is conviction. He’s not going to change who he is just to play the VC game. And I respect the hell out of that. 

Which brings me to this growing trend I’m seeing in venture.

VCs used to hold all the power. And they demanded a lot from founders, but now founders seem to be realizing how much power they have too. And there’s more early-stage VCs than ever to choose from.

So the ones that continue to play by the old rules, will get left behind. That’s the way I see it anyways.

Next up, another founder building in a space that investors have written off, Kelsey Willock at Aura Finance.

Kelsey: I graduated college with $150,000 of student loan debt getting into the game is not enough if you don't know how to play it 

That's why we're building Aura, the first psychology based financial wellness employee benefit And we're building the solution we wish we had at the beginning of our journeys. 

Jenny: I have to admit I get pitched a company like this probably once a week. 

Elizabeth: What is the user experience when a person leaves his or her employer? if my money is in your platform, I assume I can still get to it, right? 

Kelsey: The revenue we currently have is $830,000 

Elizabeth: And so that's across the three years?

Kelsey: No. That is annual. 

Elizabeth: That's impressive. 

Elizabeth: And what is your burn rate? 

Kelsey: Very low. 

[laughter]

Elizabeth: I love it. 

Kate: I’m kind of obsessed with you…I think you’re amazing and I think you’ve, you’ve kind of got it

While the VCs were obsessed with Kelsey, they didn’t like the space: employee benefits. Ewwww.

Kate passed after the show because the $15 million valuation was too high, and her firm doesn’t really do fintech. 

But we weren’t ready to close the books on this one. The big question in our minds was, even though Aura Finance is free to employees, how many people will actually sign up to use the app?

So we decided to “stay close to this” as the round progressed, and a few months later we got on a call with Kelsey and her cofounder Courtney.

Josh: Since it's been a couple months, how's the business going? I know there's been a lot that's happened. 

Kelsey: So a couple updates. We went live with Motorola Solutions They shared we were their most successful new employee benefit launch ever, We beat our baseline enrollment goal with them within the first day, which was 2% of the company. We're at just about 6% of the company. 

Josh: And to be clear, like that's the entire employee base 

Kelsey: The entire US based population. So it's about 11,000 people. 

Josh: Okay. 

Kelsey: So we're tracking at least 10%, if not 15% by year end. Motorola believes it's gonna be 15%, so they've already gotten it all approved from a budget perspective. 

Courtney: We were particularly excited because the product we beat was Ayco, which is a product from Goldman Sachs, Kelsey's former employer.. 

Lisa: That's awesome. 

Kelsey: In terms of other clients and customers. We're going to be going live with another large scale 15,000 person organization. We're simply in the process of papering the agreement now. They actually sought us out and they shared that they were currently with Morgan Stanley that serves 10% of the population well and ignores 90%. And so they were seeking a solution similar to ours, which would really provide quality financial care regardless of what's in people's bank accounts. So it's looking like we'll end the year around a little bit over about a million in revenue. Also, we currently have a $75 million pipeline. So that's why we're so excited to close out this round, and really start to accelerate this business. 

Lisa: I would like to hear what's going on with the round. 

Kelsey: We have now a lead investor. We are essentially, fully committed and we're really excited about it. We've got 19 investors committed, seven venture funds. We're really excited about this lead investor because they are well known in the future of work space, healthcare, as well as financial services. And we sit at the intersection of all three. 

Their lead investor, Zeal Capital Partners, set the terms at a $10M post and The Pitch Fund invested $150k in their $3M round. So look for the Aura Finance employee benefit, at an employer near you.

Coming up after this, when a billion dollar business still isn’t good enough.

Welcome back! This season, one episode took us deeper into the diligence process than we’ve ever gone: Jungle, a Quizlet-meets-Duolingo app that makes studying fun.

Julian: One in five people in the world are students. But unfortunately for most students, studying sucks. Why does it suck? We're told what to learn, but we're rarely ever taught how to learn. 

Kate: What I'm hearing from you in that story is having a personal breakthrough about who you wanted to be. And then you going and changing all of these habits to be in alignment with who you wanted to be. That's a little bit different than what your company is doing. 

Julian: I just see learning as a superpower in general. 

Kate: I'm curious how you've acquired the 180,000 monthly active users. 

Julian: A lot of grinding. In the last three months we've spent $105,000 to make $108,000. My co-founder, he got us this little hat called experiment mode. I think the best founders are the best experimenters.

Jesse: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Hundred percent.

Julian: Thinking like scientists is what really matters. 

Elizabeth: You're an A plus founder. 

Charles: I feel like I'm the lone dissenter. 

Kate: Ooh, Charles, spicy. 

Spicy indeed. Charles did not invest, but Jesse committed 50k

Jesse: I normally don't like EdTech, but I really like you 

And Kate was interested in leading the round. 

Kate: I'm very excited about this. Like, I'm leaning very far for - I'm gonna physically leaning forward. I'm gonna physically lean forward. 

Julian: I feel it. 

Kate: I feel like I would be very interested in diving into diligence quickly and fast tracking this with my partners.

In the end, The Pitch Fund invested alongside Jesse, but Kate dropped out after an intense diligence process. You already know all that, but we haven’t heard Julian’s side of the story… 

Josh: Tell us your version of events, what happened after the show with Jesse and Kate? 

Julian: Yeah, so after the pitch, I guess Kate is what came first. It was all like really good, really exciting. Got to meet other people from her team. At first it was Axel. 

Josh: Mm-hmm. 

Julian: Axel's a whole different vibe from Kate. 

Josh: What's Axel's vibe? 

Julian: Axel's much more on the like, Ask hard questions, don't smile too much. Be more poker facey. I remember he asked this specific question that was like, a trap and we fell into it. The question was basically do you think Quizlet is a success? 

Axel: Do you view Quizlet as a success?

Julian: I mean any company that gets to a billion dollars is a success, isn't it? 

Axel: I don’t think so. it looks like it took them 20 years to get to 75 million in revenues. 

Julian: Anyways, that's Axel's vibe. 

Lisa: That's funny. 

Josh: Yeah. A billion dollar business isn't good enough. 

Julian: Nope. Nope. 

Josh: Alright, so you had that, that first call. Do you remember any other highlights from other calls? 

Julian: Before things with Kate and Baukunst finalized, had a follow up with Jesse, and he brought on one of his partners, Rebecca. They were both super excited and doubled down on their commitment to invest $50K. There was some ambiguity of whether it was like, I'll just go ahead and put it in versus go find a lead and, you know. 

Josh: Sure. 

Julian: But I was like, I'll find a lead. It'll be fine. I'll, I'll, I'll get back to him soon. 

Josh: Uhhuh 

Julian: and then ping pong. Back to, to Kate.

Josh: Back to Kate. Okay. 

Julian: Basically, In the end, they decided to pass. It definitely hurt. Especially 'cause you try not to take some of these things personally because if you do, it's like, ends up being. Really rough on you. But it's hard not to. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Julian: Because it's like, man, like they, they're rejecting us and they're saying it's for these things that are not us. Like the retention, the market, the competitiveness. But if they actually felt like we were the right team, the right people, that they wouldn't care so much about that. So is it also like, did they not really have like full conviction in us? 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Julian: Yeah, it didn't feel good. 

Josh: What did you do after that? Like do you start looking for another VC to lead the round? 

Julian: Yeah, kind of basically kicked into full gears with the fundraise and we ended up pitching, I think it was like one or two other ICs at that time. Super close. Didn't make it, fell short. So it was brutal. And so this is kind of like I'll ping pong back to Jesse, where like, Jesse said he is down. It's been like two weeks now and I was like hoping I would have like a lead by now. The terms would be set and then it'd be like 

Josh: mm-hmm. 

Julian: easy proceedings from there. But it's like, oh shit. Like we should just close the checks that we can close right now. 

Josh: Right

Julian: because that will also help with the momentum with the rest of the round. If you have like actual money in the door, that's always way more powerful than like commitments.

Josh: Yeah. 

Julian: So yeah, I did some. Crazy thinking like, [bleep], how do I frame this to Jesse? I gotta play some 5D chess here. It'd be fun to read back on those emails, but I was basically like, yo, we would rather close the check now versus later. And like you, you get to secure this valuation with, with a lead comes in, it might be higher or whatever. 

Julian: Jesse was like, I would highly prefer if you had a lead first. And then I was like, I would highly prefer if you invested now versus later. 

Josh: You did not say that. 

Lisa: Actually I feel like that sounds familiar to me.

Julian: Oh, and then, wow. I said this. I said it's been challenging to get a lead, but we have a couple promising options at the moment and have 450 K committed slash invested on top of that. One way or another, we'll get the money we need to get. The pitch fund will also come in at a hundred to 200 K after your investment. So I would prefer to start closing on commits, but if you have a strong preference to wait until majority of the round is filled, we can do that. And then Jesse's like, great, we can do that. Then I'll loop in my CFO to get the ball rolling on Monday, if that's okay. I was like, oh, phew

Josh: It's 'cause you're close to profitable. That's like why he's willing to make an exception. 

Julian: Yeah. Yeah, it's always interesting, like how you feel and what you think and you're like, how do I put this in words so that you can get the outcome you want to get. 

Josh: Yeah. So then Jesse signed and Wired

Julian: signed and wired. Boom. That was really great and also the good thing about that is that's very close ties with Flybridge now, and they're watching. 

Josh: Mm-hmm. 

Lisa: So are you still trying to find a lead? 

Julian: No, not really. here's basically kind of where we're at now. Overall fundraising didn't go as well as we wanted. We raised just about 300K and so we decided that, you know, instead of continuing to push forward on the raise and risk wasting more time, especially 'cause we're like in the middle of a school semester. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Josh: Mm-hmm. 

Julian: Where things are intense versus like summer is more chill. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Julian: We decided it'd be best to shift away focus from fundraise. For a couple reasons. One, our growth kind of like started to plateau a little bit and that began to affect our raise

Lisa: mmm

Julian: Second, we felt like we had really good clarity on what we needed to do to gain momentum back, like fixing both retention, growth and other things. And then three, some of the biggest wins in the last few months is like two key hires that we made. A founding AI engineer. And then also an illustrator slash game designer. And so basically we're like, yo, we feel that we have the team, the clarity on what to do. And the resources. We didn't raise that much money, but it was enough. Let's just freaking go hard, build, do what we need to do, gain momentum back more, most importantly, probably get to back to profitability. 

Josh: yep. 

Julian: Which I feel confident, we can get there really soon. And then once we're profitable, we don't have to worry about like the money from the perspective of surviving.

Josh: Yeah. 

Julian: And it also gives us the leverage to be able to have a way better raise. And it's not just about making the raise easier, it's also about attracting the best partners for us. So. That's why we decided to take a step back for now. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Josh: The best time to raise is when you don't need it.

Julian: Exactly. Yeah. 

Josh: Alright, so we kind of glossed over this, but The Pitch Fund also invested a hundred thousand. So we were a part of your $300,000 mini round. What's been super cool about this whole process is it's helped us as fund managers think about our AI thesis. Like how do we find opportunities in AI? Going back a year ago, people were like, ChatGPT wrappers, like all these startups, there's no moat whatsoever to what they're building. They're just like. You know, snake oil salesmen, like taking advantage of the moment. But then I think now, like looking at some of these more mature apps like Jungle, where you realize like, no, actually the user interface can be a moat. 

Julian: Yeah. 

Josh: The user experience, the brand becomes the moat and yeah, everybody's using the same models on the other side, but like the end user doesn't know or care. What they know or care about is that the problem that they're trying to solve, Jungle solves it every time they open up the app. And that I think is really powerful. 

Julian: Yeah. 

Josh: So that's why we're excited about Jungle.

Julian: That's cool. Thank you for sharing. And I mean, just like a key highlight of life was doing that podcast. And so I'll forever be grateful for that opportunity and even double that you guys coming on and investing. So thank you for that. I don't take trust like that lightly. And you can bet your ass I'm grinding my butt off to make use of every dollar. 

Josh: I'm sure you are. 

Lisa: Oh my gosh. Good to hear. 

Jungle recently launched a whole new Jungle on Jungle… there’s a little radish, a mastery monkey, a curious capybara, and a studious sloth. Studying just got way cuter.

You know, last season’s two hour finale was great and all. But we decided not to do that again, for your sake and ours. So welcome to… the rapid fire update zone! Where you can hear what happened after the show in a timely manner.

Let’s do this. Starting with the man who brought Milan to Miami! Michele with Barberinos.

Michele: Those men drive Ferrari, they wear Armani and they live in penthouses, but they don't have a place where to go to take care about themselves. 

Kate: So I think what you're doing is wonderful, not least of all because I would like the men in America to look better. 

Charles: I would wear that. 

Kate: Do you wear cologne? 

Charles: I don't - 

Jesse: I do.

Charles: But cologne’s coming back big time

Kate: It's got to smell good. He's Italian! 

Ben: I'm not seeing anything else , super revolutionary here.

Michele: We already scale this thing in Italy. 

Ben: And how many locations in Italy? 

Michele: 16 locations. 

Michele: We want to own New York. 

Ben: Own New York. 

Michele: Yes. We want our brand to be the number one in the world. 

Ben: And investors today are getting a piece of everything? Or just the US? 

Michele: I'm making a new business in the US. So fund raising in the US.

Ben: So no, it doesn't include the business in Italy?

Michele: No. 

Kate: How do the Italian investors feel about that? 

All our American investors passed in the room, but Michele is hoping to close a $1.2 million round this week, at an $8.7 million valuation. He’s also planning to open two new locations in New York in October. So go get a hot towel!

Next up: chief crash dummy and founder of KAV Sports, Whitman Kwok

Whitman: We make 3D-printed custom bike helmets. It's the most comfortable helmet you'll ever wear. It will give a cyclist a two minute effectively head start on a 60 kilometer race. It has the highest safety ratings possible, independently verified and tested. So God forbid you get in a crash, you get to walk away. 

Whitman: I have an advanced prototype as well, which I thought you guys might enjoy.

Paige: Whoa!

Mark: Under lock and key. 

Whitman: Actually you guys are literally the only people that's seen this outside of the company at this point. 

Paige: Wow! 

Whitman: This is the R4 helmet. 

Mark: Come on. 

Whitman: For us, the strategy is win the head and own the rest of the body. 

Paige: Your command of the business is really impressive. 

Whitman: It's almost as if I put everything I love into this company. 

[laughter] 

Since the pitch, KAV launched their top secret helmet you saw on the show at the Sea Otter Classic. They also opened their new manufacturing facility in Buffalo, NY. The facility is so small, it could fit inside a Chipotle. And they ended up raising $2.4 million in total.

Part of that 2.4 million was an SPV we hosted for KAV. You, the listeners, invested $143,000. You can find out about future SPVs that we host by joining our private newsletter. Just fill out the form at thepitch.fund. 

Next up in our rapid fire update zone, Formula 1 engineer turned startup founder Gabe Elias with Material.

Gabe: Imagine a world where devices aren't constrained by the size and shape of the batteries used. Drones fly higher. Cars go further. Our manufacturing platform creates conformal batteries, any size, any shape. 

Paige: Wow that's super cool.

Mark: Can you talk a little bit about your journey? 

Gabe: So when I was a kid, all I wanted to do was design cars, specifically Formula One cars. So when I started at Mercedes in 2014 designing a car that goes 230 miles an hour and wins all those championships was truly excellent experience. 

Will: What type of margins do you generate? 

Gabe: I'm going to be targeting in the 25 to 30 percent margin 

Paige: This is like my core hesitation with the business. Yes, you can drive the cost down to the bottom of the ocean, but like, the margin of the business shouldn't also be dragged down. 

After the show, Paige tried to convince Gabe to start a nanomaterials company, but he stuck with his vision of producing batteries in weird shapes.

Gabe closed $1.5M of his $3M round. And they opened their first dedicated facility in Miami. We’re making conformal batteries folks, get in the car.

Next up: say ahhhhhhh

Therese: What I see in my patients every day is fear. You cannot do a strep throat test at home or on a video visit with your doctor. So my team and I created CurieDx. We're a mobile app that predicts diseases like strep throat using a smartphone image and AI. 

Elizabeth: I definitely resonate with this How do you even get like a clear picture in someone's mouth? 

Therese:That was the first thing that we solved for. 

Therese: You cannot unsee what I have seen.

[laughter]

Therese: In our data collection. 

Elizabeth: it just feels like you are spreading your energies across a couple of channels

Therese: I recognize that

Elizabeth: All in parallel, in one raise. 

Paige: If this is the raise that you want to do, don't change your mind at this table because you're being asked to. 

Elizabeth: I disagree with that. I think every founder should come in with multiple plans 

Charles: I disagree with that. 

Therese did not change her mind at the table. She’s hoping to raise $3.5 million instead of 4, and has 2 million soft circled.

They also launched their consumer app to the world, so now you can take a strep test at home. They’re planning to use traction on their consumer app to close their first b2b contracts soon.

Next up, the world’s first smart running shoe.

Royi: Why are shoes still dumb? I got completely obsessed with this vision and decided to quit my job and pour everything into building the world's first smart running shoe. 

Kate: Can we see the shoes? 

Royi: Of course. 

Kate: They're really lightweight. They're like surprisingly light. 

Elizabeth: Is there a reason you decided to make a whole shoe as opposed to an insert? 

Royi: Shoes are cool. In the last 15 years, there's not one, but two companies that have entered the running market and had not just modest success, but breakout success. Those two companies are On Running and Hoka. 

Elizabeth: The shoe market is huge. 

Kate: I can't get over the fact that it's a shoe business. 

Since the show, Royi went from 900k raised to over $1.2 million.

Avelo has a waitlist now of 15,000 customers for their Kickstarter launch. Which, if you’re watching this live, went live, yesterday! I’m one of the 15,000 anxiously awaiting a smarter shoe.

And finally… the founder using billions in work study dollars to create more internships.

Cathy: We built this platform about a year ago, and since then, we've served over a thousand students, 500 companies. We've built a $1.2 million annual run rate. 

Paige: That's so sick.

Cathy: This is my third company, which is fun.

Mark: Can you talk about traction, Cathy? 

Cathy: Most of our revenue today is still coming from startups. 

Mark: Okay. 

Cathy: We don't do any marketing for startups -

Jesse: Okay.

Cathy: - and we get an average of 10 new startup signups a week. 

Jesse: You'd assume roughly $100,000 a month 

Cathy: $100,000 is comfortable because we save them about five times more than they pay us. 

Paige: What were the terms of this latest round? 

Cathy: We raised $4 million on a 16 million post money valuation. 

Paige: How much allocation do you have open? 

Cathy: We actually closed the round in August of last year. 

Josh: All right. So where we last left off, you had pivoted Folio in response to Trump saying he wanted to shut down the Department of Education. 

Cathy: Mm-hmm. 

Josh: And also, you were thinking about pitching Doge and you had paused fundraising while all that was going down. Catch us up. 

Cathy: Let's see. Let's start. Two months ago, we did collectively decide that it doesn't make sense to put all of our revenue eggs we'll say into the work study bucket. And so we're still processing work study dollars, but we're not like actively marketing it a ton. That all said. the show was really effective and so we got over 200 customers interested in work study interns, and so we're like, well, okay, I guess we'll just continue doing that. 

Josh: Get out

Cathy: Truly. Yeah. Pretty amazing. 

Josh: Wait, so our show like reversed your pivot. 

Cathy: It didn't reverse it, but it, it told us like, don't not do this anymore. 

Lisa: Did you end up pitching Doge? 

Cathy: We did not. One of our investors did, though, which is good, and they said like, they don't plan to get rid of work study. So we're like, okay. But I don't know, like, who knows 

And who knows if we’ll ever get to invest. We asked Cathy in her episode, we asked afterwards, and we’re starting to sound desperate.

Josh: Are you ever gonna take our money? 

Cathy: Hopefully, yes, let's see how the summer goes.

I feel like a founder all over again.

I hope you enjoyed our rapid fire updates, we gave you 54 minutes of your life back, but closed the loop as promised. You’re welcome. When we come back…

Josh: Do you wish you would've taken Elizabeth's $150K? 

Anastasia: maybe, let’s see, I should give her a quick call…

That’s coming up!!!

Welcome back…last week, you heard the pitch for Sundae, featuring a Finnish founder who dropped everything to move to Silicon Valley and build… the LTK for groceries.

Anastasia: How do you fix one of the largest and most traditional industries in the world, grocery retail? Almost a third of all Instagram content is food and recipe content. We make it instantly shoppable 

 For every basket that gets shopped, we make between 10 to $20. 

Kate: for those who can't see, my jaw is currently on the floor. 

Anastasia: It's actually easier for us to approach influencers in the US because they all understand this model. 

Elizabeth: They're waiting for it. 

Anastasia: Yes. 

Kate: The scale of grocery is so crazy Is one biggie enough? 

Anastasia: more than enough. 

Kate: So you have that retailer? 

Anastasia: We have that retailer. 

Kate: Are you integrated with them yet? 

Anastasia: We're integrated So it's not an if. It's not a when, it's happening. 

This episode really stood out to me this season, incredible pitch, tons of excitement in the room… and a bunch of drama afterwards. 

Kate passed quickly because of the competition, Anastasia chose not to take Elizabeth’s $150K check because of the valuation…and Charles went silent after his diligence call. But months later, he finally replied and said he was out. To quote, 

“I'm just not entirely clear on whether that opportunity will yield a strong, independent company or whether this is something best delivered as a part of a more comprehensive grocery delivery or meal planning service like Instacart or Doordash.”

But there were still other VCs Anastasia was courting.

Josh: Alright, so then in the episode you were trying to raise 1.5 million. And you said you had 500K secured.

Josh: Which I believe was from your European VCs. 

Anastasia: Yes

Josh: What ended up happening with the rest of your round? Did you land a US VC? 

Anastasia: So we got an offer, a term sheet from a US based VC. It was a $1 million offer. 

Josh: Wow. 

Anastasia: And that offer was actually at a $10 million valuation. 

Josh: Okay. Yeah. But they were pushing us to actually make it into two and a half million to $3 million round. So they wanted their 1 million to be joined with another co-invest. Um, 1 million. 

Josh: Okay. 

Anastasia: And then we went out and tried to find a co-invest and we actually almost got another $1 million on the offer on the table. 

Lisa: Wow. 

Anastasia: But in the end, last minute it didn't convert. 

Lisa: Hmm

Anastasia: So that was of course, very disappointing. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Anastasia: Because it would've been a fantastic way for us to, to close this round. But having said that, I realized that I was spending so much time on fundraising, and that's not how we should prioritize our time right now because, as we talked about it, I mean, we are very ready to launch the US market and now we have, by the way, so now it's live in the US with the Instacart integration - 

Josh: Sundae's live?

Anastasia: Yes. And we changed the name from Your Beet to Sundae. 

Josh: I like that rebrand. 

Anastasia: That has been absolutely fantastic to get that validation, that traction, that momentum. 

Josh: more fun than talking to VCs, you're saying? 

Anastasia: Oh, yes. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry VCs listening, but you're such a waste of time.

Lisa: Oh my gosh. 

Anastasia: I'm sorry, yes. It's, uh, it's, uh, 

Josh: So you had like a term sheet for a million, but they made it a requirement that you get a co-lead. So you went out to get a co-lead and went into deep diligence, and then it didn't go through and you were just like, okay, this is a waste of time. I need to get back to launching the business.

Anastasia: Exactly. 

Josh: And you didn't pitch anymore VCs? 

Anastasia: No, because we realized that we had actually quite a few, like smaller check offers, right? 200 K, 100 K. So we just closed 400 K with the pitch show. 500 K. 

Josh: Wait, what? At what terms? 

Anastasia: Yes 

Josh: You counted us in this round. What are the terms? 

Anastasia: 8 million valuation is what we went for with smaller tickets. 

Josh: That's great. So you have raised from some US VCs?

Anastasia: Smaller tickets, yes. Some of them, I guess you can consider as a VC. So the bigger VCs that we talked to, they all actually wanted us to raise like a much bigger round. So the plan is that we will fundraise a bigger round with the US traction, right? Because that also will help us to increase the valuation. Because one of the dilemmas that I was facing with closing at two and half or three million, the ten million valuation is the dilution, which we didn't want to have as well. 

Josh: You believe this company's gonna take a lot of venture capital to get really big 

Anastasia: Eventually. Exactly. And I think with us traction we can then put together a proper round at the proper valuation. We are getting so much US traction now, and we just need to focus on that. We kept receiving the, the offers from CPG brands, but also, and I cannot talk about it on air, but we also started getting reach out from retailers as well. 

Lisa: Oh, wow. 

Anastasia: So there's a lot of things happening on that end. 

Josh: I'm just gonna keep saying brands until you flinch. 

Josh: Walmart, Target, Publix. Safeway

Anastasia: Yeah no I cannot say. I cannot say 

Lisa: Oh my gosh. 

Josh: Food Lion, Meyers.

Anastasia: Josh this trick is not going to work on me.

Josh: Now that you're raising at an eight mil cap and the round is smaller, do you wish you would've taken Elizabeth's $150K? 

Anastasia: I really would love to work with Elizabeth. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Anastasia: I think she's such a down to earn, pragmatic person and investor. I think that's what really speaks to me, rather than the money. 

Josh: It sounds like you're making the case for taking Elizabeth's money. 

Anastasia: I mean, I don't, I mean at 8 million valuation… maybe, let’s see, I should give her a quick call. 

Josh: We did the math and the difference between a seven mil cap and an eight mil cap at a 150,000 dollar check is 0.3 % between either 1.8 % dilution or 2.1.

Lisa: Ahhhh

Anastasia: Are you pitching that I should take Elizabeth’s money?

Josh: Well, I'm a big fan of Elizabeth and just hearing you describe you wanting to set yourself up for success from a US VC, she is that. mean, like literally that is their, that is their MO is like being one of the first checks in. So.

Anastasia: Yeah, I recognize that. Yeah, I definitely recognize that. I've been only impressed with Elizabeth and her team and the fund. Only positive things to say, for sure.

Lisa: Tell us about launch day in the US. Do you remember like the first order that came in?

Anastasia: Yes, absolutely. Actually it was activated by one of the influencers and it was an order of $160. 

Lisa: Oh, wow. 

Anastasia: All the orders so far. I think the average right now is $130 if I remember right. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Anastasia: So it really validates that people are not shopping just for one recipe, right? The idea is to plan and shop your weekly groceries with Sundae. On Sunday.

Josh: Yeah. But does it work on Monday? 

Lisa: Oh my gosh. 

Anastasia: Josh, please, uh, give it a go. Please try it. You know, let me know. 

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. Josh, all that grocery shopping you do. Check it out.

Josh: Whoa. Whoa. Why you gotta throw me under the bus? 

Anastasia: Maybe I can send you actually my favorite collection of recipes that you could easily shop with just one click.

Lisa: Ah! How Perfect. Do that. 

Josh: I'm gonna try it on Monday and see if it works. 

Lisa: Oh my gosh.

Anastasia: Yeah. Perfect. That's a, that's a good test.

PS: The company is named Sundae as in ice cream sundae, not sabbath sunday. And it can indeed be used on the sabbath, regardless of what day that is for you. Anyway… you can shop whenever you want!!

After trying out the app and doing some diligence of our own, The Pitch Fund committed $100k in her round at the $8 million cap. The round should close in the next couple weeks!

And finally …. The finale of the finale … let’s give science a call

Luisa: We're using AI agents to help restaurant operators do their jobs and not get yelled at by customers. Toast is not gonna solve this for you. They'll tell you how to solve it yourself. 

Jesse: What is the relationship that you have with these platforms today?

Luisa: As far as we know, we're actually the only people automating processes in Toast right now. 

Jesse: Do you wanna replace Toast? 

Luisa: you might think restaurant operators want more dashboards and analytics, but they do not. 

Jesse: And how much had you raised previously?

Luisa: We've raised 4.5 million. 

Luisa: And sorry, were you asking valuation or? 

Jesse: Yeah, you don't have to say it. If I'm giving you advice, I wouldn't say it out loud. 

Mark: Why is no one else doing this? 

Luisa: Because restaurants are really hard.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. 

Will: Brutal. 

After the show… Jesse ghosted. Paige and Mark did their diligence, but both passed. Mark got pretty close to investing, but when he dug into the numbers, he didn’t like the relationship between revenue and OpEx! 

To make things abundantly clear, the margins weren’t great last year. Because Science was literally running a call center. But their AI pivot showed promise. So we dove into diligence. And jumped on a call with Andy and Luisa a few months later.

Lisa: Sounds like you're like right in the middle of trade show right now. 

Andy: We are absolutely in the middle of trade show and we have a big event tonight that we're co-sponsoring with a couple other companies. We paid for a hundred people and we have 166 RSVPs. So it's gonna be some excitement at the gate. 

Luisa: At our last party, I had to be the muscle. 

Lisa: No

Luisa: Yeah 

Lisa: You're so intimidating

Luisa: I pretty much just let everybody in because.. 

Josh: That I could see. 

Lisa: That sounds like me. 

Andy: We're, we're literally in the hospitality business. We really don't have a choice in the matter.

Josh: That's so fun. All right, well, since you guys have a lot going on, let's get into it. After everyone dropped out. From our show. Where did that leave you guys on the round? Because you were trying to raise 2 million. Have you raised any since the pitch? 

Luisa: Yeah, so we ended up opening a SAFE. We've raised about 650 to date. We'll probably cap that out at about 1.3 million. And then after that we're gonna go on for a much larger round, like a more proper series A. 

Josh: Okay. Awesome. At what valuation? I know you mentioned 20 on the show. 

Luisa: It ended up being a 14 million pre-money valuation because this is kind of an in-between round.

Josh: Right.

Luisa: We'd love to get to the 20 million valuation, but for right now, until we can prove that OPEX is tracking with revenue in the right way. Which we're, we're actually, we've made a lot of progress on that front too. 

Josh: That's awesome. So after everyone either passed or ghosted you, Lisa and I talked and we felt like this actually would be a good opportunity for our fund. So we got on a call with you all and did some diligence of our own.

Let’s get super meta. This is a call within a call with science on call.

Josh: What do VCs not understand about this business that you wish they did? Do you think they're basically looking at how messy this business is now, and they don't believe you when you say, we can get this to 80, 90% margins. 

Luisa: Yeah, I think that was the problem when we first launched the round and even on the show was that the P&L doesn't show what they want to see and you can't hide that. That's your P&L. That's what it cost us to run the business for five years. And we literally had only just launched conversational AI and automations, like when we were on the show. That was brand new. So it's like, I don't have any data for you. It just started. So now we actually have the data. We're very close to like 100% of tickets are responded to and initially troubleshooted by our AI agent. And then maybe there's another step after that that a human has to do 15% of the time. 

Josh: Okay. 

Luisa: It's really exciting. Like a human doesn't even have to look at the tickets that our AI agent, internally named Dwight. He is our assistant to the general manager. 

Josh: Is that an office reference? 

Luisa: Yes. 

Lisa: So great. 

Luisa: Our team fully embraces it. Like Dwight has a manager. Her name is Nicole. 

Josh: I think there's like probably one final step for our diligence other than you've already sent over the data room, so we have that. 

Lisa: You said that the lead from the last round is the one that set terms? 

Luisa: Yes. Yeah. So we can connect you with Marshall. He's on our board. He led our seed and then came in on this round as well. So. We talk to him all the time. He knows our business almost as well as we do probably at this point. So, happy to make an intro. 

Andy: I think he's half my age. He went to Harvard. He played professional hockey. He's the smartest person I've ever met, and I do a really good Marshall imitation, but I'm not gonna do it for you now because you’ll laugh when you meet him and it'll throw off the conversation. 

Luisa: He comes off as like, pretty serious, but is also like someone I would consider a friend of science, like biggest supporter. If you wanna dive deep on, on something, he'll, he'll go deep on it. 

Josh: Okay.

Lisa: Hello

Josh: Marshall!

Marshall: How’s it going

Josh: Thanks for taking the time to chat. Obviously Luisa and Andy speak very highly of you, we’ve gotten to know them pretty well. Our big question to them on the last call was just like, what do VCs not understand about this business? I'm surprised that this round didn't come together more quickly. And so I'm just curious from your perspective, why is that? 

Marshall: I think there's a couple different challenges. First. Founding team’s in Chicago and no one is seeing Chicago as like an AI hub today. On top of that, Andy, Luisa and Ken do not look like the typical founding team of like the hot AI startup. And I do think this is where like the Bay Area is going to miss some great opportunities where they don't invest in teams that know the industry as well. They invest too much in technologists and that's the opposite of what Science has. And frankly, and I, I mean this like as positively and endearing as possible, like they're a bit of like a cast of misfit toys. Uh like And I love it. Andy's much older than like the typical first time founder, right? Like, and him and Luisa have been working 10 years together, but Luisa is much younger and like has been an entrepreneur with Andy since she graduated from college basically. Ken has a Harvard degree, but not in computer science, but has been a CTO at a grocery store chain. It's a little bit of like, what is this? And I think most VCs are lazy and they rely on like standard signaling and like frankly, this team doesn't have any one signal that matches like the standard of the dozen that they're looking for. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Marshall: I've told them this to the, like, I'm very blunt with them. Like if this company was based in San Francisco and they had someone who like came from AI or like, you know, had a more typical technology, machine learning, data science background as like the leader, they would've already raised 20 plus million dollars. I think that's their challenge in fundraising. And if the VCs don't get it today, that's fine, as long as the customers are getting it and like they are , they're selling it, right? And, and when they sell it, it works. So, I think one day soon folks will open their eyes from the investment community, but until that day, it's everyone else's opportunity.

Luisa: You heard it from him. He's blunt with us. Which is why we appreciate him. 

Josh: Do you agree with Marshall's assessment? 

Andy: A hundred percent. Like, you know, there are areas where we could improve our storytelling, but on the same token we don't tell stories like we live this, we do this work. We're about proving stuff, and so we don't tell tales. We don't inflate our numbers. We don't give aspirational stuff like, well, we have a commitment for this. Like, no, we talk about signed revenue, we talk about revenue that comes in the door every month. 

Josh: Right. 

Andy: And those things are important to us. Maybe too important, I don't know, but it's how you run a real business. 

Josh: It sounds like you're throwing a little bit of shade at the West coast VCs. 

Andy: No. 

Lisa: How do you guys feel about Florida VCs? 

Andy: You know, Florida's absolutely the weirdest state in the union. 

Josh: Agreed. 

Andy: And we would be ecstatic to have some weird money on our cap table. I just think it would be like the balance out, the corn-fed Midwesterners in us. Let's do something weird. I would not include Florida VCs as coastal. You know, 

Josh: Uh-huh. 

Andy: It's like you're your own thing

Josh: They're in their own category. 

Lisa: Yeah. We, yeah, we are in our own category. Well, we would officially like to invest in Science On Call if you'll have us.

Andy: We, we, I, I can't tell you how exciting that is. And we were hopeful that that might be the, the outcome of this meeting today. But, that's really exciting to us because Florida's weird and, and so are we sometimes. And I think the fact that you're able to hone in on like there is an X factor here, there is something special about a team that has worked together for 10 years and hasn't choked each other yet. And um, that's super exciting. 

Lisa: That is special. 

Andy: Yeah. That, that's, that's super exciting to me because it tells me you see things that not everybody's able to see, we respect and appreciate that.

Lisa: Thank you. 

Josh: Thanks Andy. 

Lisa: We can probably relate a little bit to the, the misfit toys analogy as well. We are obviously not the stereotype VC did not come into the world of venture from the traditional background, and so 

Luisa: we like that

Lisa: I think it's a good fit.

Luisa: Yeah.

Josh: Florida Man invests in AI startup 

Andy: Right. It writes itself.

Josh: I can make the joke. 

Lisa: You can. 

Josh: So yeah, we would love to invest 160,000 in this round. 

Andy: Amazing. 

Luisa: Amazing. Yes!

Josh: Because your next round will be too pricey for us. And I think what we see in your company. It's just founders with deep industry expertise and I just love that you came from the restaurant industry, you've served them for decades, and then you choose to continue to serve that customer

Andy: Right

Josh: Having someone that you deeply care about and to wake up every single day and solve their problems, that's really, really special. I think with AI, there's just a huge opportunity to help so many people, but you will have the insights to do it in the way that those customers actually want, 

Andy: That really resonates with me that you see that because that is the business we're in is hospitality. Hospitality is an incredible business because you have 300, 500 chances to win every day. If the back of house gets an order wrong or an online order doesn't inject in the POS and it's not ready when people show up. Those are chances to lose. People are gonna be unhappy. But if you're good at hospitality and you're committed to taking care of people, you can fix every single one of those interactions just as a human being. And that's why we're so excited to handle the technology part. Let humans focus on the art of being human and of taking care of other people. Nothing excites us more than that. 

Josh: Yep. I love it. All right, so I'm curious. When are you looking to close up the round? Because if you're interested, we could open up a syndicate to let listeners invest more. If you're open to that 

Andy: That's exciting to us. I think it's a, a great way to reciprocate the, the opportunity you've created for us is, is to let your viewers and listeners, join as well. 

Josh: Well, that's exciting. You heard it here, the syndicates back! 

Luisa: Yes. 

Josh: I love it. Alright, so I know we took you from your trade show. And now where are you off to next? 

Andy: Back to the trade show… 

Luisa: at least half of the crowd are restaurant operators who are ready to sign up for science on call. 

Josh: Let's go. 

Luisa: Yes.

We’re really excited to be opening another syndicate for listeners. If you’re interested in learning more and potentially investing in Science on Call, you can do so by going to pitch.show/science. We’ll collect a bit of info from you and then email you as soon as the syndicate’s live.

Before we close out season 13, I have one big takeaway. And that is this: founders, never say a price for your round, UNLESS you already have terms. You’ll be tempted to, VCs will ask you to, just don’t do it! You can share the terms of your previous round, and then say these words exactly: “We’ll let the market decide.” That is all.

And now we’re on to the next: Season 14 of The Pitch is taping in Napa in late August. And you’re invited! This event is for VCs, angel investors, and LPs. You’ll meet 18 founders from all over the country, spend the day watching live pitches, and spend the evenings indulging in great wine and great company at our VIP dinner. Yes, there will be Christie’s Chips. 

Limited Release Tickets are on sale now. The earlybird price ends June 28th, and we’d love to see you there, so go to pitch.show/napa right now and sign up. It is the most fun group of VC and startup founders and LP‘s you’ll ever meet. I may be a bit biased, though ;) 

If you can’t make it to hear the pitches live, we’ll start dropping season 14 episodes this fall. So stay subscribed. We’ll be back sooner than you think!!!

Music by Fleece Panther, The Muse Maker, Breakmaster Cylinder, Cold Storage Percussion Unit, Strange Knight, Boxwood Orchestra, Joya, Angular Wave Research, Peter Jean and The Runaway Queen, Carey Haynes, Onders, Shaky Faces, A\YO, Imagined Nostalgia, Astronaut Club, Freedust, Cafe Nostro, and The Brow.