Afore Capital

Many have ideas, but few can turn them into enduring companies. How do you build conviction around the right idea to work on? Afore’s Founder-In-Residence (FIR) program helps you get from idea (or pre-idea) to conviction. Learn more about the program and how to apply ⬇️ At Afore, we have been laser-focused on Pre-Seed since 2016. Applications for our 5th cohort are NOW OPEN! Don’t miss the chance to turn your ideas into a legendary company. Apply here: https://lnkd.in/exBXfUh2 Here’s what you get as an Afore FIR: 💰 $100-500K+ in funding 🧑🤝🧑 Build alongside 5-8 ambitious founders 📞 Access to customers + database of 10K+ potential design partners 🏢 Dedicated office space in SF’s South Park Founding a company requires exploration, imagination, and, ultimately, conviction. The Afore FIR program allows you to explore and refine your ideas with like-minded peers and prospective customers over a structured 8-week program. Whether you're a full-time founder, a part-time tinkerer, or even a student, no one is "too early" to apply to the Afore FIR program. This is your chance to take the plunge and bring your vision to life! Apply at https://lnkd.in/exBXfUh2

Introducing the Sizzle Reel: a 2-minute highlight video from your sales calls that decision-makers will actually watch. At the end of every sales call, sales reps send the call's recording in their followup, hoping it would get forwarded to decision-makers who couldn't make it. Let's be honest - does anyone ever watch them? Never! When you add Sam - the AI Sales Engineer - to your sales call, it generates a 2-minute highlight video of the call's best moments. Editing the reel is simple: as easy as editing a word doc. Add some sizzle to your follow-ups with Sizzle Reels, powered by Sam.

Many have ideas, but few can turn them into enduring companies. How do you build conviction around the right idea to work on? Afore’s Founder-In-Residence (FIR) program helps you get from idea (or pre-idea) to conviction. Learn more about the program and how to apply ⬇️ At Afore, we have been laser-focused on Pre-Seed since 2016. Applications for our 5th cohort are NOW OPEN! Don’t miss the chance to turn your ideas into a legendary company. Apply here: https://lnkd.in/exBXfUh2 Here’s what you get as an Afore FIR: 💰 $100-500K+ in funding 🧑🤝🧑 Build alongside 5-8 ambitious founders 📞 Access to customers + database of 10K+ potential design partners 🏢 Dedicated office space in SF’s South Park Founding a company requires exploration, imagination, and, ultimately, conviction. The Afore FIR program allows you to explore and refine your ideas with like-minded peers and prospective customers over a structured 8-week program. Whether you're a full-time founder, a part-time tinkerer, or even a student, no one is "too early" to apply to the Afore FIR program. This is your chance to take the plunge and bring your vision to life! Apply at https://lnkd.in/exBXfUh2

📣 We’re thrilled to announce that Cercli (YC S23) has raised $4M in seed funding from Afore Capital, COTU Ventures, Y Combinator, Rebel Fund alongside the likes of Karim Atiyeh (Ramp), Sebastian Mejia (Rappi), Tony Dong (Rippling), Tony Jamous (Oyster), Allison Pickens, the founders and executives from unicorns Kitopi, Careem and other notable MENA-based startups! 🚀 We’re building the single modern platform for MENA businesses, to hire, manage and pay your entire workforce - reducing human error and staying fully compliant. 💫 ✨ A big thank you to our customers and investors for trusting in our vision. To read more: https://lnkd.in/dq5gZWiG

Excited to share that Agency from the team behind AgentOps has secured $2.6M in funding led by 645 Ventures, Afore Capital, Ben Tossell and a few incredible angels. We've personally built and reviewed hundreds of AI agents and are excited to continue helping startups and fortune 500 companies prototype and productionize AI Agents. We are extremely thankful for our early users, community members, partners, and advisors. We would not have been able to do this without you.

Thanks to everyone who came to our Founders-In-Residence Cohort 4 Showcase event on Monday! We had a packed house of ~150 top founders, operators, and Seed / Series A investors attending. We're looking for exceptional candidates for Cohort 5! If you know anyone that might be a fit (who is the most interesting person you've met recently?) - please email jack mcclelland at [email protected] / have them apply at afore.vc/residence and mark your name as a referral. Our FIR teams are very early but wanted to showcase where they're headed. Sneak peek into half of them below: 1️⃣ Wayside is an AI assistant for people teams 🤝 Ish Baid is a 3x founder (YC S20, Forbes 30 Under 30), prev SWE at Meta (helped build their in-house HRIS). Phil Dakin previously led a tech team at Citadel Securities ⭐️ Wayside's AI Agent automates core HR workflows such as inquiry handling and people analytics, reducing necessary headcount 2️⃣ Podqi provides intellectual property protection for the biggest names in entertainment 🤝 Ivan Esmeral and Jesse Xu lived together at UPenn (CS). Ivan built large-scale data pipelines at Microsoft, Jesse worked on GEN AI for Google Docs. Trevor West grew up with Ivan, went to USC, and sold data science software to the gov ⭐️ Podqi automates detection, takedown, and retroactive compensation for infringement on entertainment intellectual property 3️⃣ Echo (askecho.ai) protects your focus by eliminating busywork 🤝 Manu Ebert is a 4x founder with 2 exits (one to Airbnb) and has 12 YOE building in ML. Conor Brennan-Burke is a repeat AI founder and seasoned PM (Checkr, Pave), prev BCG ⭐️ Office workers spend over half of their time coordinating their work over email, chat, and meetings. Echo AI protects your focus by automating the flow of information in your organization to enable deep work 4️⃣ MineMe is building a data marketplace where users reclaim control and compensation for their info, while enterprises get access to the best consumer data. 🤝 Archana Somasegar (Harvard BA, Wharton MBA) worked in consumer tech innovation at McKinsey and led New Customer Growth at Deliverr ⭐️ MineMe builds robust, ethically-sourced consumer data feeds & generates AI driven insights to help marketers better connect with their customers 5️⃣ AgentKali (agentkali.ai) transforms offshore SDRs' voices to sound American during live sales call using deep learning and AI 🤝 Shikhar Sakhuja was previously a SWE at Discord and Motive, did CS at Waterloo and NYU, and is a 3x published ML author. Charles Javelona was the ex-COO of Tiny Mile, a 3x founder, and ex-Scotiabank (innovation team) ⭐️ AgentKali is augmenting offshore SDRs workflow such as outbound and inbound to book more calls using deep-learning and ML techniques 6️⃣ 7️⃣ 8️⃣ 9️⃣ And we have four more in stealth! For any questions / referrals for our Founders-In-Residence program, please contact jack mcclelland at [email protected] or find out more and apply at https://afore.vc/residence

Congrats to Jimmy McDermott at Rubie on the $3.2m raise announcement! Setting up ERP's, CRM's, or other complex software involves tedious configuration and long implementation times. Rubie utilizes AI to automate manual configurations tasks. Excited to have led the round! 🎉

at Afore Capital, we’re hosting a showcase for our founders-in-residence (and happy hour afterwards) at our sf office in two weeks! for the past two months, nine founder-in-residence teams have been working from our office ideating and working to get to conviction on problems and products. on july 15, we’ve invited friends of afore (a small group of investors, angels, operators, and future fir’s) to get a first look at what these teams are building and mingle with the other sharp minds in the room. teams will share their raw updates - many of them are still very early on their journeys and won’t raise for another few months. during this showcase, our fir’s will share what they’ve learned / built so far and where they’re headed. we’re now opening up a handful of seats for others to attend this summer! learn more here: https://lnkd.in/efY9hjqZ

at Afore Capital, we’re hosting a showcase for our founders-in-residence (and happy hour afterwards) at our sf office in two weeks! for the past two months, nine founder-in-residence teams have been working from our office ideating and working to get to conviction on problems and products. on july 15, we’ve invited friends of afore (a small group of investors, angels, operators, and future fir’s) to get a first look at what these teams are building and mingle with the other sharp minds in the room. teams will share their raw updates - many of them are still very early on their journeys and won’t raise for another few months. during this showcase, our fir’s will share what they’ve learned / built so far and where they’re headed. we’re now opening up a handful of seats for others to attend this summer! learn more here: https://lnkd.in/efY9hjqZ

Excited about Keragon's launch out of stealth today! Congrats to Conno Christou and team 🚀 Keragon lets healthcare providers build HIPAA-compliant automations, helping eliminate the repetitive and manual processes they struggle with. Thrilled to have co-led the first round 🎉 #startups #venturecapital #healthcare