Congratulations to Hightouch for landing on Redpoint's InfraRed 100, alongside Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, and Lovable. @kashgupta_ , @tejasmanohar , and Josh Curl, well deserved. Proud to have believed in you from day zero 🤝 See the full list and report here: redpoint.com/infrared/100/

Today we’re introducing @Seda_AI_ - The world’s first end to end Synthetic UX Testing Agent 🤖

Congratulations @rronak_ @MichaelElabd @QuantumArjun and team Trajectory on launch!! I'm frequently asked “With vibe coding, do founders even need a technical advantage anymore?" Today with Trajectory s launch, you can see for yourself the answer! the team has it all: - technical - commercial - talent triple threat Could not imagine better people to work alongside, so proud to be a tiny investor and Congratulations on launch, team!!!!! @AforeVC Let's f go! this is just the beginning 📈

we switched up the format last week and I loved hosting this intimate single-circle fireside chat w/ 20 founders and Zack Peng (@AforeVC founder of Seel) on "finding & founding" a $100M ARR business! 🎙️ want to join the next one? @AforeVC Founders in Residence summer cohort apps just opened - in 8 weeks, go from idea to first 5 customers! learn more: afore.vc/residence and curious what Zack shared on his founder journey? 💡 Do you still need a unique insight: Zack had one - working as an engineer at an insurance company, he found it crazy that insurance was still being modeled off 30-year-old tabular data (e.g. how many times has this geo flooded in the last 30 years, vs. what is the weather like recently?). that belief - something better must be possible - is what got him started! 🔨 brute forcin' it...: flew to denver, spent hours in ubers pitching uber driver income risk (as a self-proclaimed introvert!! spoiler: no PMF) 🙋🏾‍♂️ Listening to first customer: "your risk analytics seems fine, but if you're really that good, I'll pay you $18 for every $20 you save me in returns...!" once you find that vocal, trusted customer, go build! 🏆 PMF is real. when you have it, you feel it. til then - change the product or change the ICP, don't get emotionally attached, and try to pivot fast! but ofc, easier said than done 🥲 if you want some help along the journey, join us for Founders-in-Residence summer cohort: afore.vc/residence

Want to be the next Hightouch? Want an LED truck driving through NYC celebrating your Series D? That journey starts with an idea and a willingness to build! Apply for our Founders-in-Residence program: afore.vc/residence

We invested in @HightouchData before the company had a name. Before the product launched, before the category took off. We believed in the incredible vision of the founders, who knew there was a better way to do marketing. Today that vision has sparked a $2.75 billion company. Hightouch just announced their Series D, crossed $100M in ARR, and launched an agentic marketing platform that is changing how the world's biggest brands do marketing with AI. Most investors wait for proof. Afore believes in founders. We believed in @kashgupta_, @tejasmanohar, and Josh from day 0. And as is tradition at Afore Capital, when our founders hit a milestone this big, we take it to the streets. 🚛 Our favorite LED truck is back on the road. From the streets of San Francisco to New York City, rolling past the offices of the biggest brands in the world, past the CMOs and marketers who are about to realize that everything they know about marketing just changed. Afore Capital 🤝 Hightouch. From day 0 to Series D🎊

excited for team @trysaffron to upend how engineering teams hire!

Last week we brought together some of our favorite angels and emerging fund managers for a dinner at the Afore office. A dozen brilliant minds in one room talking early-stage AI, AGI and the future of venture capital ⭐

If you're sitting on an idea but haven't taken the leap yet, Afore's Founders-in-Residence program was built for exactly this moment. 10 founders at a time, 3x a year. First customers, fundraising support, and a team obsessed with getting you to liftoff. 🚀APPLY NOW. And if you want to see what Afore founders are made of in person, join us April 28 in SF for a fireside chat with Zack Peng, founder of our portfolio company Seel, and Emily Yuan from Corgi. Come hear about their journeys.🐾🦭 partiful.com/e/J8KhBfhxSJyCS…

how do SOME founders find a $100M ARR opportunity in a sea of AI-everything...? we are gathering a curated group of future founders next Tues for a fireside chat @AforeVC ! if youre thinking of starting a company and wondering where great ideas start... Meet @emily_yuan_ (cofounder @UseCorgi ) and Zack Peng (cofounder of Seel) & hear how they picked a big hairy industry, found a wedge, and survived to beat out incumbents partiful.com/e/J8KhBfhxSJyCS…

BYOR bring your own robot

More from the Afore Spring Showcase. 16 founders, one stage, one night in our office 🚀

Are you in product design? If so, you are all too familiar with the painful process of creating your design in Figma and then shipping it off to the front end engineering team to "try" to recreate in code. It never looks the same. Not to mention all the wasted back and forth. In the world of fast-moving AI, you can't afford to use ancient tools. Meet @noondesign -- the first dual-canvas where you design how a product looks and how it works. We at @AforeVC were lucky to back @bandiaditya, @kushagrasinha7 and the Noon team at pre-seed. Incredible what they've achieved in such a short time. Can't wait to see where they take this. LFG!! noon.design/ or msg me for early access!

Two nights ago at the @AforeVC Spring Showcase, a cybersecurity founder called out data leaks from investors in the room, another founder launched his first custom-fabricated robots, and two founders went from $0 to enterprise revenue in just a few weeks. 300 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬. 16 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬. A mix of Afore Capital portfolio founders and our FIR and FIR U graduates. Three months ago most of them had nothing but an idea. Last night they had customers, revenue, and a room full of people leaning in. And just like that, they've graduated. So incredibly proud of our FIR U group.

People ask if we're crazy for betting on college dropouts. One of those bets just got acquired by @DoorDash for the best IRR in our fund history. Metis 🔥 Aryan started as a campus scout, that's how we first met him. We backed him as one of our first college dropout founders, very early stage. Marcus and Aayush built alongside him. Stories like theirs are exactly why we started FIR U. 𝐅𝐈𝐑 𝐔 𝐢𝐬 𝐀𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞'𝐬 2-𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐬. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐞𝐭: investment, 2 months in San Francisco, office space and 1:1 mentorship, sales, product, and fundraising support, and an investor showcase in front of 200 VC firms. You don't need a co-founder. You don't need to drop out. You just need to be ready to build. Apply now: afore.vc/students Can't wait to see you in the office!

We heard you 👀 one more week. Applications for the @AforeVC × @GammaApp $10M Ideas to Reality Fund are now extended. If you’ve been sitting on an idea, this is your sign. We backed @GammaApp at day zero. No product, no users, just an idea. We’ve been doing this for 10 years. We know what early looks like. New deadline: March 31 Apply: afore.vc/gamma

Last chance!👀 Applications for the @AforeVC x @GammaApp $10,000,000 Ideas to Reality Fund close today. We're reading every single one. @AforeVC backed @GammaApp before it had a product, users, or even a name. Today it's a $2B company with 70M users. Apply now: afore.vc/gamma 🤝