Emir Atli

We raised $50M to build the First AI Revenue Agent. It runs New Business, Expansion, and Prospecting to close you more business while you sleep.

With a heavy heart, I have to share some difficult news.Last night I lost my wallet, and with it, one share of Anthropic Series D. Now accepting replacements. DM me.

Raising the wrong Series A kills hundreds of great startups every year. If you have a term sheet on the table, make sure you’re not making one of these 5 mistakes: 1. Raising Series A pre-empted It’s a great feeling to have an investor already on your cap table to give you a term sheet and pre-empt you. But this is actually a trap because there is a big chance that: - You actually don’t need the money - Price is too low - You are not ready to run a good process fast So you actually end up raising at a lower valuation and without proper process/story. 2. Raising before true PMF Series A is the loudest external validation founders see at the early stages. Most seed-stage founders are dreaming of the day they announce this round. But most don't think about what being a Series A company actually means: - A board member in every major decision - Board-level numbers you have to hit - P&L, CAC, LTV, payback, all of it All of these mean that you cannot focus on hitting PMF and you cannot pivot easily. It’s all about scaling as quickly as possible. If you don’t 100% believe you have true product-market fit, you should not raise a Series A. 3. You are tired of being a seed-stage company/founder A lot of founders want to raise a Series A because they don’t want to be a “seed stage” company. You think enterprise buyers won't take a seed company seriously. That’s not true anymore. Enterprise appetite for early-stage tools is the highest I've seen. I closed multiple 6-figure deals as a seed-stage founder in 2024. If you have PMF and good demand gen, they will buy. 4. Raising without thinking about board control/dynamics The decisions you make at Series A is determine future rounds. You need a very good company-side counsel before going into negotiations, and the founders need to align on what they want in board dynamics to be able to maximize control. Too many founders think they can just change things later in future rounds and end up getting bad terms, the wrong control, and hate their lives at their own companies. 5. Optimizing for the highest valuation Raise too much at too high a price and you spend the next 18 months growing into an realistic number. Miss it and your next round is flat or down, which kills momentum and morale. TAKEAWAY The term sheet is the start of the race, not the end. Every decision you make at this stage is mission critical, especially the timing. Series A sets the stage for the future rounds. Board seats, control, the people in the room when it gets hard. Get those right, and the money is the easy part. Get them wrong and you'll have to raise again just to fix them.

@sdianahu LETS GO!

I'm deeply grateful and honored YC has changed my life twice: first as a founder, and now as someone who gets to back and support ambitious talent that's unproven feel lucky to do this work, and even luckier to do it with people I admire so much

"Mom, how did we get so rich?" "Your father got rid of all his expensive AI agents and replaced them with cheaper human workers"

My founder friend is struggling with his company's budget. Can anyone help? MRR: $55k Salaries: $36k Paid ads: $15k Software: $8k Office rent: $12k AI tokens: $500,000,000 Office supplies: $300 His burn rate is out of control and he's not sure what to do

Parents: "Move out" Girlfriend: “Quit being such a loser” Boss: "Work harder" ChatGPT: "You're absolutely right!"

AI just quit on me

Went to breakfast with an old friend Asked how he's using AI in his startup He paused for a moment "As a large language model, I can't help with that request." Unbelievable. He was using AI and sent his robot clone to breakfast with me. You think you know someone...

@matthewqueen84 @CORGI you tagged the wrong acc

So we got a multibillion dollar captive out there. Kind of. More or less. @CORGI is suddenly a massive player in the startup business insurance space. Here is a breakdown on what the company is & how its doubled its billion dollar valuation in 3 weeks. Corgi is the program administrator for the Technology Risk Retention Group, Inc. An RRG is a member-owned liability insurance company permitted to write across state lines. It's similar to an E&S carrier but only has filings with its domicile state & has materially lower capitalization requirements. TRRG is domiciled in Arizona which has a minimum paid in capital requirement of $500k. TRRG is, in turn, reinsured by Corgi Reinsurance, Inc. Corgi Re is also an Arizona domiciled entity and appears to be a captive. Both TRRG & Corgi Re are managed by Dane Management, LLC. So what is Corgi? And why is it so important?

Just chatted with a founder friend He has a huge problem 3 months ago, he told his team to spend whatever they wanted on AI No limit or budget He just got the bill $575,000 for last month alone His company only does $50k in MRR He's panicking I told him to relax "Spend 10x more," I said He looked at me like I was crazy "Look, if you owe the AI company $500k, that's your problem. But if you owe them $50 million, that's their problem."

@glenntoews it’s normal for an insurance company

Just deployed an AI agent to apply for this job About to make $570k in passive income

@nicoaferr @withdefault @8vc @owner @AirbyteHQ congrats!

Today, I'm incredibly excited to announce @withdefault's Series A led by @8vc and our new product. We spent the last three years building the tools and orchestration layer companies like @owner and @AirbyteHQ have used to build infrastructure across their go-to-market functions. Today, we're launching the first real-time data layer for go-to-market, a powerful new revenue agent, and a suite of tools for revenue teams and their agents. It's Day 1.

@zaygranet backed by a16z (a16z)

Anyone know who funded them? Worked it into the subject, body, and signature.

Prospecting is easy when you understand how to play the game

Mr. Beast plans to lock 100 SDRs into call pods until they can set 3 discovery calls with qualified decision makers on their AE's calendar The winner gets a $5 gift card to Starbucks

@mattepstein 🤔

Back in nyc… spent a week away Forgot how nyc is the best city in the world Fuck sf

Just chatted with an old startup friend Asked what he's been building lately Told me he's founded 90 new startups in the last month Vibe coded every single one of them in just a few minutes I asked if any of them generated revenue He said no and told me that I just didn't understand what vibe coding is all about