Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a very clear section titled "Wait, is this a grant or an investment?"
Exactly, and yet they still call it a “grant.” Would you have no problem if Amazon called themselves a charity?
smile.amazon.com
$250k for your AI-first product startup
91–100 of 101 posts
Re: $250k for your AI-first product startup
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a pretty decent set of info and links to personal profiles on their website. If that’s not enough for a founder to do due diligence, they probably aren’t cut out for VC fundraising. And someone writing small checks like this is almost certainly not going to be on the board unless the founder is clueless.
Not enough. This “apply to us” format should be deprecated. There’s a solo investor on twitter who says “DM me would love to chat if you’re building something.” And that’s much more approachable. She’s flooded with high quality founders and startups. People who run their own thing are looking for partners not a boss or anything that resembles one. This “fill up this form job/university application format so some alle…
What was your experience raising money, and how much did you raise?
Re: $250k for your AI-first product startup
#93It amazes me how many VCs or angel investors will put out all this information about what they want to see in a company or founder they invest in, but close to nothing about themselves on their website. “We have money to invest come and apply to us and we will determine if you are good enough.” Bro please. If we are building game changing AI before we take your money we want to know what you stand for. What are you m…
You have a fair point. It's interesting because I was literally just going through government programs that provide startup funding, where the application burden is high, the value is pretty low, and the format overall skews hard towards acting like the funding org has all the power and applicants should be thankful that someone deigned to review their application.
It's actually similar to the job market. There is government, where only the most desperate, process oriented folks bother to go through the silly bureaucratic process, there's "traditional" application-interview-offer where the employer has the power, and there's a pull model for top people where they get hunted for jobs.
The more power and brand you actually have, the more you can skew traditional / bureaucratic. If you're an unknown startup, you can't just post a job as and expect to get good candidates (I've tried that) - but you get a lot of mediocre ones. And if you're an unknown investor, I'd expect the same.
These investors either have done similar enough things before that they have a sense of the candidates / companies they'll get and are cool with that level, or will learn this time about the volume and quality this kind of solicitation generates.
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Products, not papers. Tinkering, not training. Apps, not Arxiv
Re: $250k for your AI-first product startup
#94Sorry if this is obvious, but it's $250k for what percentage? I have something that might be the type of startup (integrating AI into algonfts.art) except it's not a very popular niche and probably wouldn't make back the $250K. Although that reality doesn't seem to stop most people.
As I understand it's at the best terms they give on their next raise, ie if they raise at a 2.5 Million valuation, this investor will get 10%. That's the mfn clause.
Edit: already explained in several posts above
Re: $250k for your AI-first product startup
#95I would love to apply on these positions but it takes a colossal effort to pull anything. Those willing to bet into the future, I have few suggestions.
1. Design an app that takes in series of text prompt and generates images for corresponding prompt that is coherent across all images. These images will be keyframes.
2. Design an app that acts like database of videos, so that you can query any kind of clip.
3. Try to use view- consistent generated images to get 3D models.
4. Define agents that can play for a given rule and gradually adjust the rule or even form new rules!
I want to be that post in hn which inspires multi million dollar company!!
Good luck.
Re: $250k for your AI-first product startup
#96Hey folks, this is Evan from AI Grant! We're excited to support founders building new AI products. AI Grant is investing $250k on an uncapped, no-discount, MFN SAFE, as well as providing more than $300k in cloud credits. AI Grant used to do small grants in lots of AI research projects. Now, we think there's plenty of research, and what's needed is products: so we're doing bigger investments in founders building produ…
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Re: $250k for your AI-first product startup
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does the "uncapped, no-discount, MFN SAFE" work? What does that mean in terms of the percentage of equity you'd take? I'm self-funding fakeyou.com from a previous exit. My AI/ML startup is called "Storyteller" and my team is about to launch real time voice conversion (you -> Trump, Adele, etc.), music generation (instruments + vocals), and real time motion capture (for film and animation, essentially super high q…
Very high level explanation of a SAFE is that it converts on the valuation of your next funding round. Uncapped means that if you raise at a $200m valuation in one year, the SAFE will convert to equity at 250k/200m or 0.125% of the company. More details here https://capbase.com/how-do-safes-work/ .
So if you raised 500k, they would get 50% of the company?
Re: $250k for your AI-first product startup
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very high level explanation of a SAFE is that it converts on the valuation of your next funding round. Uncapped means that if you raise at a $200m valuation in one year, the SAFE will convert to equity at 250k/200m or 0.125% of the company. More details here https://capbase.com/how-do-safes-work/ .
So if you raised 500k, they would get 50% of the company?
If you raised at a $500k valuation, yes. Not if you just raised $500k.
Re: $250k for your AI-first product startup
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if you raised 500k, they would get 50% of the company?
If you raised at a $500k valuation, yes. Not if you just raised $500k.
Okay, so that is what “uncapped” refers to here — there is no cap on how much of an ownership stake the investor can translate to.
That contract seems like a really bad deal unless you’re certain to be raising a lot of money & need capital to cross some barrier to get there.
Re: $250k for your AI-first product startup
#100Hi Evan - are you funding multiple companies with $250K EACH, or is this a single investment of $250K from the org?