Who We Are:AI is the new electricity: Just as electricity transformed numerous industries starting 100 years ago, AI is now poised to do the same. AI Fund is an early stage venture firm founded by Dr. Andrew Ng in 2017. Our portfolio companies utilize AI technology and applications to improve processes and efficiency. The AI Fund team combines their experiences as AI pioneers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors, and operators. We are backed by a $176 million-dollar fund from top-tier VC firms.
Together, let’s build great companies that will move humanity forward.
What We Seek:The Venture Advisor will act as an auxiliary to the firm and will have the primary goal of helping launch and grow companies. We are looking for individuals who have demonstrated the ability to start companies and have invested in early stage companies. They should have the ability to morph and steward companies from zero to one and the investment prowess to know whether to invest our time in a project or kill it quickly.
What You Will Be Doing:The successful candidate will help build and advise companies. The expectation in terms of time spent is 5 - 8 hours a week during the three months co-building phase and then on average 2 hours a week for 2 years after the FIR receives funding from AI Fund.
The Venture Advisor will work with Associates and the Partners to move a company through several stages:
Hypothesis and Early Validation (if applicable):We are looking for companies to be built in large markets and in areas where the market shifts are favorable for new opportunities or new disruptive products. The Venture Advisor may work with Associates and the Partners to formulate a hypothesis and do early validation. This would include:
Definition of the problemUnderstanding the competitive landscapeMarket analysisEarly customer validationCreating a pitch deck to get buy-off on hiring an FIR (Founder in Residence)
Hiring of FIR (if applicable):We will bring in leadership in the area of the hypothesis to further the progress of the startup idea.
The Venture Advisor will be active in the recruiting process of the FIR and act as the hiring manager. The Venture Advisor will act as a coach/mentor or as a sounding board to the FIR whenever necessary. The Venture Advisor will continue to work with the FIR towards getting the company from zero to 1.
Co-Building:Working with the FIR and Company to continue building, validating, and iterating on the PC, including carrying out a study of the most viable approach to deploying the desired products or services. Explore potential MVP product designs. Help develop an actual, market-ready prototype using low-code / no-code platforms. Help identify possible approaches for a commercially viable go-to-market (GTM) strategy, optimized for the initial cohorts as well as follow-on audiences. Help identify best candidate business models for pre-revenue and revenue-based monetization strategies. Help finalize an investor-ready deck which may be used to proceed with fundraising if appropriate.
Launching a project:We will invest in the company to build a team, launch the MVP, and ultimately seek external funding. The Venture Advisor will continue to work with the FIR as an active Executive Board Member with the goal of getting the company from zero to 1 and securing an outside round of capital within a year of closing the pre-seed financing.
What You Must Bring:
- Experience in building a successful startup from 0 to 1 resulting in an exit (large or small) multiple times.
- Prior operating, product or engineering executive experience.
- Experience raising venture capital financing or have worked as an Angel Investor or for a VC in an investment capacity.
- Strategic thinking.
- Highly collaborative work-style, pragmatic, and resourceful problem-solver
- Capability and desire to build relationships and network within the venture industry
- Demonstrated problem-solving, quantitative and qualitative analysis skills, including deep familiarity with high-tech startup
- Approaches work with an unparalleled level of personal ownership, responsibility, integrity, and ethics
Nice to Have:
- MBA, Engineering, or other advanced degrees are a big plus.
- Sales or business development experience is a plus.
- Seen companies through the growth phase is a plus.
- Domain expertise to be better matched to a project is a big plus.
Characteristics:
- Accountability: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions while doing so with the highest regard for integrity.
- Leadership: able to influence others to follow you and lead the team to a brighter future.
- Grit. able to stick with projects and work hard through good and bad times. High pain tolerance and can perform well under stress or pressure.
- Scrappy: Takes initiative and proactively gets things done with low resources, but doing creative things, begging, borrowing, and whatever is needed in an ambiguous environment or situation.
- Ownership orientation: Demonstrated orientation of extreme ownership over all aspects of the company and extremely results-driven in nature.
At AI Fund, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. AI Fund believes that diversity and inclusion among our employees are critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. Selection for employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.
