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How 2 high school teens raised a $500K seed round for their API startup (yes, it’s AI) | TechCrunch

Jun 23, 2024 - techcrunch.com
Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot, both 18, have raised a $500,000 pre-seed investment from Varana Capital for their startup APIGen, which is developing a platform to build custom APIs from natural language prompts. The pair, who graduated from high school a few weeks ago, are spending the summer working on their startup in Boulder, Colorado. Fitzgerald will attend Penn State in the fall, while Van Landschoot is putting his college plans on hold to focus on the startup.

APIGen aims to create complex custom APIs that can perform multiple tasks, such as allowing an e-commerce business to connect its web front end to its database, or enabling a drone to fly around a perimeter, capture images, and interface with another application. The startup is still in its early stages, with a beta version set to be released this month. Despite competition from tech giants and established startups, Varana Capital sees a significant opportunity for return in the $7 billion-plus API market.

Key takeaways:

  • 18-year-old best friends Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot raised a $500,000 pre-seed investment from Varana Capital for their startup APIGen, which is working on a platform that will build custom APIs from natural language prompts.
  • APIGen aims to create complex custom APIs that can do multiple or serial tasks, including for IoT devices and web apps.
  • The teens met on their school’s debate team and bonded over their love of coding. Their first project together was a chatbot that would allow people to chat with data.
  • Varana Capital founder Philip Broenniman was so impressed with the teens' presentation that he offered to invest. The VC also provided office space for the startup.
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