How a high school student built viral apps and raised US$3M for AI startup (Daniel Vassilev, Relevance AI)

Levi Fawcett is the co-Founder and CEO of Partly, a Christchurch-based company building a global platform to make it simple for buyers to find the right parts for their vehicles.  In this episode, Levi shares the path that led him and his co-Founders to find a problem and opportunity that is so big, it led to a US$1.2 million pre-seed round, despite having no pitch deck, no connections and no revenue; the milestones they hit to achieve a NZ$37million raise at a NZ$180 million valuation in their series A capital raise (making it the largest in New Zealand history); and the questions he asked when he was vetting investors for their capital raise.    Resources and links: Levi Fawcett | LinkedIn Partly Blackbird Ventures Peter Beck (Rocket Lab) Square Peg Capital The Life You Can Save (Peter Singer) 20 Minute VC Lex Fridman podcast Radiolab podcast   Connect with us: Learn how to raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Download one our free SAFES v Convertible Notes Cheat SheetSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jason Atkins is the Chief Revenue Officer and co-Founder of Cake Equity. Cake simplifies equity management for early-stage tech companies, empowering founders to build outstanding companies through equity.   In this interview, Jason shares his strategy for de-risking his move from a well-paid corporate career into startup life, how he convinced Jason Calacanis (one of Silicon Valley’s best startup investors) to lead a capital raising round, and how to raise capital successfully in the current economic climate.    Resources and links: Cake Equity Jason Atkins | LinkedIn Jason Atkins (@skandojase) / Twitter Jason Calacanis Startmate Rampersand LAUNCH Aussie Angels Richard Moore Angel Investor Slack QIC Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick  Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman  All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg | Spotify  Against The Odds | Podcast - Spotify Startup Equity Matters Podcasts   Connect: Learn how to raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Download one our free SAFES v Convertible Notes Cheat Sheet  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re sharing some of the highlights from our favourite conversations with startup Founders in 2022.  Today, we’re revisiting My-Linh Dang’s chat with Brooke Roberts, CEO and Co-Founder of Sharesies. Sharesies is an investment platform that democratises financial investment by giving anyone with $5 the same financial investment opportunity as someone with $5 million.    Resources and links:  Sharesies | Website  Brooke Roberts | LinkedIn    Connect:  Learn how to raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Download one our free SAFES v Convertible Notes Cheat Sheet See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re sharing some of the highlights from our favourite conversations with startup Founders in 2022. Today, are some of the highlights from my chat with Jessica Christiansen-Franks, Co-Founder of Neighbourlytics, a platform that provides data and insights into the urban life of neighbourhoods.   Resources and links: ●      Jessica Christiansen-Frank’s LinkedIn ●      Neighbourlytics Website   Connect: Learn how to raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Download our free SAFES v Convertible Notes Cheat SheetSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re sharing some of the highlights from our favourite conversations with startup Founders in 2022. James Behzadi, the CEO and Co-Founder of Kintell. Kintell is a digital platform that connects subject matter experts with learners across any topic for a video learning session. Resources and links: James Behzadi Linkedin Kintell Y Combinator SAFE   Connect: Learn how to raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Download one our free SAFES v Convertible Notes Cheat SheetSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is the second instalment of our chat with Noga Edelstein, advisor & investor at Tractor Ventures, a fund that helps unlock possibilities for startup founders through non-dilutive capital and hands-on advisory services.  If you missed the first instalment, catch up here; in that episode, Noga shared how to scale your startup by knowing who your target customers are (which is trickier than you think), how to prepare an investor pitch that actually gets heard, and how to approach building an investor network that gets you efficient access to capital.  In this Part 2, Noga shares how to raise capital in these challenging economic times; the art of valuing a startup and how to vet and secure the right investor for your startup.   Resources and links:  Noga Edelstein LinkedIn   Shantaram   Tractor Ventures Masters of Scale – Reid Hoffman  Hey You   Crowded House  INXS   Connect: Learn how to raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Register for one of our free capital raising webinars.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Noga Edelstein is co-Founder of Urban You, one of the most successful home service booking platforms in Australia, which she successfully exited in 2018 and which was bought out by OneFlare and ultimately by AirTasker in 2022.  Today she sits on the other side of the table as an advisor and investor at Tractor Ventures, a fund that helps unlock possibilities for startup founders through non-dilutive capital and hands-on advisory services. With this 360 experience, Noga is uniquely positioned to help Founders looking to raise capital and scale their startups. In the first of this 2 part interview, you’ll hear how Noga’s early acting career helped build her resilience for capital raising; how she beat her competitors by understanding who her customers actually are and what female founders can do to help them raise capital successfully.  Resources and links: Noga Edelstein | LinkedIn  Tractor Ventures  SBE Tech Accelerator Black Nova VC   Connect: Learn how to raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Register for one of our free capital raising webinars.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daniel Vassilev is the Co-Founder of Relevance AI, a tech startup that gives businesses artificial intelligence super powers using a no-code AI platform and focussing on unstructured data (e.g. text, pictures, video, audio). When he was in high school, Daniel built an app in 1 week that allowed users to listen to YouTube music in the background. The app had 1 million users in just over two years. When PokemonGo was at its peak popularity, Daniel built an app that located Pokemons. That hit 4 million users in just two months.   In this episode, you’ll hear Daniel’s guiding principle for validating ideas; how a conversation with a friend at a high school party led to a long-lasting co-Founder relationship and how he managed to successfully raise $3M, without it taking him away from the day-to-day business of Relevance AI.  Resources and links:  Daniel Vassilev | LinkedIn  Daniel Vassilev | Twitter  Relevance AI | website  Want to work with Relevance AI Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy – Stephanie Kelton Background Briefings – Rise of Far Right YouTube Premium Netflix -Stranger Things Running up that hill    Connect:  Learn how to raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Register for one of our free capital raising webinars. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mel is the Co-Founder of Blakthumb. Blakthumb is a tech company that provides an intuitive end-to-end operating system for cultivators and producers of cannabis and food. They are driven by their mission to build resilient communities with better food security through the power of decentralised production.   Mel spent almost 20 years in senior positions in government and local government before she decided to use her knowledge to change cannabis and food production systems.  In this episode, you'll hear Mel share why decentralised food production (think growing crops in office buildings) is the way of the future; how she managed financial insecurity when she started working in Blakthumb full time and how she nurtured relationships with prospective investors years before Blakthumb started raising capital.    Resources and links:  Blakthumb | Website  Blakthumb | Instagram  Blakthumb | Twitter  Mel Fyfe | Twitter Playing to win: How strategy really works – Roger Martin, A.G. Lafley Amy Winehouse documentary    Connect:  Learn how to raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Register here for our Term Sheet Negotiation Masterclass. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brooke Roberts is the Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Sharesies. Sharesies is an investment platform that is democratising financial investment by giving someone with $5 the same financial investment opportunity as someone who has $5 million. Sharesies won the 2021 Finder Investment Awards as the top share trading platform for beginners. Brooke and her Co-Founder, Sonya Williams won the NZ Women of Influence 2020.  In this episode, you’ll hear Brooke smash some of the common myths that Founders are told about capital raising; how she and her 5 co-Founders created the vision and values that still drives Sharesies today as a $500m business and how she and her co-Founders managed the almost impossible: keep all shareholders on the same class of shares so that her early backers would not be diluted further.    Resources and links:  Sharesies | Website  Brooke Roberts | LinkedIn  Purakau: Maori Myths Retold by Maori Writers | Amazon  Inventing Anna Trailer | YouTube  Aiming Out by Two Another | YouTube    Connect:  Raise capital for your startup quickly, cost effectively and successfully with Term Sheet Guru. Register here for our capital raising Masterclass. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.