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Just a few weeks ago , 18 - year - old best friends Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot graduated from high school .
While most stripling their age would be living it up in their last summer before college or the adult Book of Job that wait them , Fitzgerald and Van Landschoot are hunkered down in a VC position in Denver , Colorado .
They ’re spend the summertime work on their startup APIGen after they raised a $ 500,000 pre - seed investment from Varana Capital . Fitzgerald will head off to Duke in the fall and Van Landschoot will move near the university but is putting his college program on custody to be a full - metre startup founder .
The money was raise while they were still in high school after a prototype for their estimate garnered a sight of interest among the big Boulder community of AI partisan .
APIGen is working on a platform that will build usance genus Apis from natural language prompt . It will be able-bodied to , for instance , allow an east - Commerce Department business to simply require for an API that relate its World Wide Web front last to its database , and the political program will give up it .
By API , the founders do n’t just mean a received “ app programming interface ” that allows app to exchange data or perform some other dewy-eyed workflow function . They want APIGen to create complex custom APIs that can do multiple or serial tasks .
“ We ’re actually engender the code for the APIs so that you may have business logic , literal custom functionalities within those APIs as well , ” Van Landschoot say TechCrunch .
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In addition to web apps and database , Fitzgerald says IoT devices are one of his startup ’s target areas . He proffer the example of a client demand for an API that apprise a drone to flee around the perimeter of an surface area , catch images and allow another applications programme to interface with the consequence . Another deterrent example is an API that expend face recognition for building security . Once a database of photos of verified employee face is make , the substance abuser could ask APIGen for an API that allow a smartlock ’s door camera check the face of everyone who arrives against that database before unlocking the door .
“ genus Apis at the conclusion of the solar day , can be as simple or as complex as you make them to be , ” Fitzgerald said . “ They can range from just raw connection that take one debut of datum , one row of data from a table of a database , to entire back ends . And that ’s really what we ’re prove to direct there , for entire vane apps for entire IoT applications . ”
The adolescent met on their shoal ’s debate squad and bonded over their love of coding . Their first project together was a chatbot that would allow people to confabulate with data . They shortly earn that it was n’t an original idea . Still , while building that app , they learn that their technical school rely on genus Apis and that “ make APIs was kind of a pain , ” Fitzgerald tell . “ They were hard to plan . ”
So they rivet on that . Once they crafted an alpha version of their idea , a demonstration - layer shaft , they began to show it around to the programmers in their circle to get feedback . They live people in their local tech industry . Van Landschoot ’s dada works in cybersecurity IT , and Fitzgerald down a summer internship at SoftBank through a link with a friend ’s dad .
And then they lead off send frigid messages to VCs on LinkedIn and to anyone else they think might answer .
“ We asked citizenry to destroy this pitch deck , ” Fitzgerald said .
A VC is so impressed, he offers to invest
One of the people who got the content — and had hear about the founders through other link in Denver / Boulder ’s tight - knit inauguration community — was Philip Broenniman , founder of Denver ’s Varana Capital . Varana set about as a family office for Broenniman and a collaborator 13 old age ago , and has since expanded into a firm with institutional LP money and $ 400 million in AUM , he told TechCrunch
Broenniman and Varana COO Ankur Ahuja harmonise to adjoin with the teens . “ We go into the meeting thinking we were go to provide some fatherly , avuncular advice ; cater some words of wiseness , ” Broenniman told TechCrunch . “ We walked out after two hours of their display think that this was the best presentation we had find out in the last five class . We were shoot a line away by the cogent insights these two 18 - year - old gave . ”
With Fitzgerald tog in his beneficial perspirer and Van Landschoot in a debate - squad - style collared shirt , they leaned into their debate breeding and pitched their fellowship , their vision , the likely market and themselves .
Rather than feedback on the auction pitch , “ At the close of the coming together , they mentioned that they were really concerned , ” Fitzgerald said of the Varana married person . Broenniman asked the teen how much money they were looking for .
Varana did its software bet into the potential of the API market place , which has created multibillion dollars ’ Charles Frederick Worth of successes ( MuleSoft corrupt by Salesforce , Apigee bought by Google , to name just two ) . And it looked at the father ’ backgrounds : Fitzgerald graduate as valedictorian of a top - ranked in high spirits school in Boulder , which has a highly range public education organization ; Van Landschoot was such a gifted programmer that he had been tutor college reckoner science students since he was 14 .
The Varana partner scheduled a second meeting for the founders to present their technical school to verify the teens were n’t just “ good at talk but not deliver and doing stuff , ” as Van Landschoot described .
The stripling were anxious , they confessed , but the demo went well and the VC offered a term piece of paper : $ 250,000 of pre - seed money with another $ 250,000 in a SAFE , which is a greenback that convert to fairness if the startup provoke subsequently . The VC also provided power space .
While they were pitching to the VCs , Fitzgerald find out about Boulder ’s active AI Meetup that has 1,400 members , organized by a dad of one of Fitzgerald ’s tennis squad mate . Boulder has a famously close and cozy inauguration residential area and , along with nearby Denver , boniface office outposts for Amazon , IBM , Google , Microsoft and many others .
The teens joined the radical and show their Cartesian product , and the local AI enthusiasts rallied behind them and their idea .
APIGen is obviously very other . And it is n’t the only one working on automating APIs . Giant tech party like Salesforce ’s MuleSoft andestablished startups like RapidAPIare already working on this market place , as are most of the swarm giants .
APIGen also does n’t yet have its minimal viable product build , though it ’s getting close-fitting witha genus Beta versionthat will be released this month . “ We ’ve already had some sake from businesses , but obviously we ’re still pre - MVP at this stage , and just cranking , strain to get it out as soon as possible , ” Fitzgerald said .
Still , Broenniman , who takes board seats with investments , is in for the ride . He points to how the youthful founders have already built a residential area of eager supporter .
“ APIGen may be the fomite into which we ’re get an investiture , but we ’re make partnership with Christopher and Nicholas , ” he enounce . “ This is a $ 7 billion - plus market place . They are enter with some factor of competition there but are carving out their own quad . The opportunity for coming back from our standpoint is insane . ”
