WordWare: The AI startup that just raised a $30 million seed in 7 days

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Hi 👋, this is the Today in AI Newsletter: The weekly newsletter bringing you one step closer to building your own startup.

We analyze a cool, industry-shaping AI startup every week, with a full breakdown of what they do, how they make money, how much they’ve raised, and the opportunity ahead. 

Let’s get to the good stuff in this email: 

• This startup created the first IDE focused on building AI agents

• They’ve already had over 350k users with 10 million people using agents built on it

• They’ve raised a $30 Million Seed - one of the largest seed rounds in YC history

p.s. Stick around till the end for fundraising tips from their CEO who’s raised $30 million in 7 days… 🤑

So what’s the startup and who are the founders behind it? Here’s the story of WordWare 📈

WordWare was founded in June 2023 by Filip Kozera and Robert Chandler with the mission to empower companies to harness the full potential of AI. 🤖

The main problem we currently have with building software is that iteration speed is extremely slow. 🦥 People who should be part of the iteration cycle aren’t able to read code.

This is why code generation has moved so far 🧑‍💻- engineers are the people who can look at code and judge the outputs.

WordWare is betting against this. They believe prompts don’t belong in the codebase.

In LangChain you have to move from prompts to code to natural language to LLMs which only then output natural language. 🗣️

The domain experts (eg. lawyers, doctors) know exactly what to do but cannot start working on it and can’t iterate themselves.

WordWare has created the first IDE focused on building AI agents, where the coding language is just natural language. 💬

In other words, with WordWare you can now build AI agents in plain English❗

By design, WordWare is super similar to Notion where you can call different functions using “/”. 📄

If you’re dealing with someone non-technical, you can deploy an application - they can write out the whole flow, then you can share the app within the firm as an internal tool.

This enables domain experts and engineers to collaborate on building sophisticated, usable AI solutions. 👫

These agents are also immediately accessible as an API.

Backstory 👀

Both Robert and Filip have been in the space of AI and LLMs for the past 7 years. 🐣They were both early adopters of LLMs like BERT and GPT-2.

Thee 2 met at Cambridge University where they both had a love for AI and a desire to see how far technology could be pushed. 💫

They quickly bonded over Machine Learning and LLMs, spending countless hours discussing ideas and experimenting with new tech.

They imagined a future where AI could transform entire industries. The year was 2014…

Robert then went on to join FiveAI as a pioneering engineer to work on embodied AI and be on the forefront of self-driving. 🚙 The startup was acquired by Bosch in 2022.

Filip also had an impressive track record, having raised over $10M with previous startups. 💸

He founded an AI startup right after university, building ML tools to improve the internet for the visually impaired. With this, he won UCL VC fund, Microsoft Imagine Cup UK and McKinsey Venture Academy. 🏆

He then founded Kristalic - aiming to develop a digital memory bank for every human with early LLM models like BERT and GPT-2. With this he got into Techstars 2019 batch and raised $6.5M, but it ultimately failed. 😫

He then co-founded HeyDaily with Robert, a way for creators to create paid subscriptions and send exclusive content to their fans which got to 30k in MRR profitably. 💸

Filip never continued with HeyDaily because he didn’t see the opportunity for a unicorn being built in the space.

All this time, Filip and Robert stayed friends and always had AI on the back of their minds. 🤓

The 2 co-founders had one mission in mind: To empower companies with the tools and insights they need to harness the full potential of AI. 👊

The Hustle 🤑 

They had a discussion over dinner one day about this and thought about creating software through prompting.

“If prompting is the new programming, what should the tools look like?” ⚒️

They got into Y Combinator’s (YC) S24 batch with this idea where they got a lot more guidance on building.

In a couple of days Filip and Robert built the initial product - a simple AI application. It was designed with shareability in mind to tap into human psychology. 🧠

They then quickly launched on Product Hunt to validate the idea and see if what they were building was feasible.

The launch also shows proof of concept for what’s possible…

📈 7.5 million people engaged with the launch on Product Hunt, fueling virality that peaked during launch. 

In mere weeks, WordWare’s revenue grew 20x and they scaled to over 350k users. 🚀

💰This is also when WordWare raised a $30 million seed round led by Spark Capital with participation from Felicis, YC, DayOne Ventures, Paul Graham and many more.

This was one of the largest seed rounds in YC history, and they raised it in just 7 days... To put this in perspective, this is 15x the size of a typical YC seed round of $1.5 - $2 million. ✴️

Today, WordWare powers AI backends and LLM workflows for startups and enterprises like Instacart and Runway, completely transforming the way AI apps are built.

BONUS: Fundraising Tips from Filip 💸 Source : Forbes 

Raising $30 million in just seven days requires more than just luck. Filip Kozera, the Co-founder and CEO of WordWare, shares how he and his team approach raising money with storytelling, strategy and precision.

1. 🔢Master Storytelling with raw numbers: "Fundraising is ultimately about storytelling—you're selling a vision of the future”. 

For WordWare’s pitch they avoided traditional slide decks and fancy presentations. 😝Instead they used a single page of raw metrics - enforcing the narrative to make the numbers more compelling.

 "When you strip everything down to core metrics, you create a story that makes those numbers speak to the future you’re building.”

2. 🥱Preparation creates “effortless Meetings: "The goal isn’t just to be prepared—it’s to be the most prepared person in the room,”

Wordware meticulously researched every single potential investor’s thesis, portfolio companies, and personal interests.

 They tailored pitches accordingly making meetings feel personal and purposeful to build trust. 🥰

3. 😎Confidence in Strategy: "VCs should have to negotiate for these rights, and in some cases, even offer a higher valuation in exchange,"

Wordware approached their raise with a clear strategy. They had a funding target they were 80% confident in.

This made sure that if anything, they'd be oversubscribed instead of falling short of investors.

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