Only a few weeks in the past, 18-year-old greatest pals Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot graduated from highschool.
Whereas most teenagers their age could be dwelling it up of their final summer time earlier than faculty or the grownup jobs that await them, Fitzgerald and Van Landschoot are hunkered down in a VC workplace in Boulder, Colorado.
They’re spending the summer time engaged on their startup APIGen after they raised a $500,000 pre-seed funding from Varana Capital. Fitzgerald will head off to Penn State within the fall and Van Landschoot will transfer close to the college however is placing his faculty plans on maintain to be a full-time startup founder.
The cash was raised whereas they have been nonetheless in highschool after a prototype for his or her thought garnered numerous curiosity among the many massive Boulder neighborhood of AI fanatics.
APIGen is engaged on a platform that may construct customized APIs from pure language prompts. It will likely be capable of, as an example, permit an e-commerce enterprise to easily ask for an API that connects its net entrance finish to its database, and the platform will ship it.
By API, the founders don’t simply imply a normal “application programming interface” that permits functions to change information or carry out another easy workflow operate. They need APIGen to create advanced customized APIs that may do a number of or serial duties.
“We’re actually generating the code for the APIs so that you can have business logic, actual custom functionalities within those APIs as well,” Van Landschoot advised TechCrunch.
Along with net apps and databases, Fitzgerald says IoT gadgets are one in every of his startup’s goal areas. He gives the instance of a buyer asking for an API that instructs a drone to fly across the perimeter of an space, seize pictures and permit one other software to interface with the end result. One other instance is an API that makes use of face recognition for constructing safety. As soon as a database of images of verified worker faces is created, the consumer might ask APIGen for an API that lets a smartlock’s door digicam verify the face of everybody who arrives in opposition to that database earlier than unlocking the door.
“APIs at the end of the day, can be as simple or as complex as you make them to be,” Fitzgerald mentioned. “They can range from just new connectors that take one entry of data, one row of data from a table of a database, to entire back ends. And that’s really what we’re trying to target there, for entire web apps for entire IoT applications.”
The teenagers met on their college’s debate workforce and bonded over their love of coding. Their first venture collectively was a chatbot that may permit individuals to speak with information. They quickly realized that it wasn’t an authentic thought. Nonetheless, whereas constructing that app, they realized that their tech relied on APIs and that “making APIs was kind of a pain,” Fitzgerald mentioned. “They were hard to design.”
In order that they centered on that. As soon as they crafted an alpha model of their thought, a demo-level software, they started to point out it round to the programmers of their circle to get suggestions. They knew individuals of their native tech trade. Van Landschoot’s dad works in cybersecurity IT, and Fitzgerald landed a summer time internship as a programmer at SoftBank by way of a reference to a pal’s dad.
After which they began sending chilly messages to VCs on LinkedIn and to anybody else they thought may reply.
“We asked people to destroy this pitch deck,” Fitzgerald mentioned.
A VC is so impressed, he gives to take a position
One of many individuals who received the message — and had heard concerning the founders by way of different connections in Denver/Boulder’s tight-knit startup neighborhood — was Philip Broenniman, founding father of Denver’s Varana Capital. Varana started as a household workplace for Broenniman and an “ultra wealthy” pal, and in its 13 years since, it has expanded right into a agency with institutional LP cash and $400 million in AUM, he advised TechCrunch
Broenniman and Varana COO Ankur Ahuja agreed to fulfill with the kids. “We went into the meeting thinking we were going to provide some fatherly, avuncular advice; provide some words of wisdom,” Broenniman advised TechCrunch. “We walked out after two hours of their presentation thinking that this was the best presentation we had heard in the last five years. We were blown away by the cogent insights these two 18-year-olds gave.”
With Fitzgerald wearing his greatest sweater and Van Landschoot in a debate-team-style collared shirt, they leaned into their debate coaching and pitched their firm, their imaginative and prescient, the potential market and themselves.
Quite than suggestions on the pitch, “At the end of the meeting, they mentioned that they were actually interested,” Fitzgerald mentioned of the Varana companions. Broenniman requested the kids how a lot cash they have been in search of.
Varana did its diligence trying into the potential of the API market, which has created multibillion {dollars}’ value of successes (MuleSoft purchased by Salesforce, Apigee purchased by Google, to call simply two). And it regarded on the founders’ backgrounds: Fitzgerald graduated as valedictorian of a top-ranked highschool in Boulder, which has a extremely ranked public training system; Van Landschoot was such a gifted programmer that he had been tutoring faculty laptop science college students since he was 14.
The Varana companions scheduled a second assembly for the founders to demo their tech to verify the kids weren’t simply “good at talking but not delivering and doing stuff,” as Van Landschoot described.
The teenagers have been nervous, they confessed, however the demo went nicely and the VC provided a time period sheet: $250,000 of pre-seed cash with one other $250,000 in a SAFE, which is a notice that converts to fairness if the startup raises later. The VC additionally offered workplace house.
Whereas they have been pitching to the VCs, Fitzgerald realized about Boulder’s lively AI Meetup that has 1,400 members, organized by a dad of one in every of Fitzgerald’s tennis workforce teammates. Boulder has a famously shut and comfy startup neighborhood and, together with close by Denver, hosts workplace outposts for Amazon, IBM, Google, Microsoft and lots of others.
The teenagers joined the group and demoed their product, and the native AI fanatics rallied behind them and their thought.
APIGen is clearly very early. And it isn’t the one one engaged on automating APIs. Large tech corporations like Salesforce’s MuleSoft and established startups like RapidAPI are already engaged on this market, as are many of the cloud giants.
APIGen additionally doesn’t but have its minimal viable product constructed, although it’s getting nearer with a beta model that will likely be launched this month. “We’ve already had some interest from businesses, but obviously we’re still pre-MVP at this stage, and just cranking, trying to get it out as soon as possible,” Fitzgerald mentioned.
Nonetheless, Broenniman, who takes board seats with investments, is in for the trip. He factors to how the younger founders have already constructed a neighborhood of keen supporters.
“APIGen may be the vehicle into which we’re making an investment, but we’re creating partnership with Christopher and Nicholas,” he mentioned. “This is a $7 billion-plus market. They are entering with some elements of competition there but are carving out their own space. The opportunity for return from our standpoint is insane.”