How to Skip Your Seed, Pre-Seed Lessons Building Afore to $500M+ AUM | Anamitra Banerji

The Peel with Turner Novak

Anamitra Banerji is the Co-founder of Afore Capital, an SF-based VC firm that specializes in investing in pre-seed stage companies.

Our conversation gets into the evolution of Pre-Seed as a category, why Pre-Seed is more than option checks, what Afore looks for when backing founders before they even have a product, how to skip your Seed and go straight to a Series A, and how to run a fundraise process.

We also get into Afore’s Founder in Residence program, why every VC started an accelerator, how AI is changing venture, joining Twitter as the first PM, and how Oprah helped create the legendary verified checkmark.

Thanks to Gaurav Jain and Derrick Li at Afore for their help brainstorming topics for Anamitra.

And special thanks to Bolt and Warp for supporting this episode.

• Bolt: Help them break a world record for the largest hackathon - up to $1m in prizes. Sign-up.

• Warp: Automates payroll, handles multi-state tax compliance, and streamlines international contractor payments, so founders can focus on building, not busywork. Try it here.

Timestamps:

(4:00) Afore: Starting in 2016 to build the pre-seed category

(8:11) The unstructured data Afore underwrites at pre-seed

(11:21) Pre-seed is determining bronze from gold

(16:03) Why pre-seed is more than option checks

(20:33) The secret to raising a Series A

(23:20) Running a tight fundraise process

(32:05) Skipping your Seed round

(34:01) How to measure obsession in a founder

(39:20) Knowing when to follow-on

(40:54) Figuring out what really matters in a business

(42:36) Afore’s Founder in Residence program

(49:44) Pros / Cons of more access to capital for founders

(52:27) Two reasons YC made every VC launch an accelerator

(1:01:05) Why AI is forcing VCs to invest earlier

(1:06:55) Will AI commoditize software?

(1:08:29) Growing up in India, starting his first company

(1:10:39) Coming to the US for school, joining Overture + Yahoo

(1:14:05) Joining Twitter as first PM, creating the Verified check for Oprah

(1:18:55) Building Twitter’s first ad product

(1:20:28) Why non-founders can’t take foundational risks

(1:23:02) Starting Afore for the Pre-Seed opportunity

(1:27:47) Raising Afore Fund 1

(1:31:14) How to raise your first fund

(1:33:33) Was Turner the best Afore intern ever?

Referenced

Afore Capital

K9 Capital

Afore’s Founder in Residence Program:

Speedrun

PearX

Neo Accelerator

Gamma

Develop Health

Follow Anamitra

Twitter

LinkedIn

Follow Turner

Twitter

LinkedIn

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week.