Karleki, MIT Undergrad Startup, Launches After Raising $450K Of Venture Capital From Cronos Ventures

Karleki Inc, an internet tech platform out of MIT revolutionizes how people find startups and venture capital firms. It aims to create a business search platform that acts like an investment bank. They raised a pre-seed round of $450K in April 2021 pre-product at a valuation of $10 million and launched their site this week.

Jason Tang, CEO of Karleki started Karleki during the pandemic in his MIT residence during his senior year. A double major in Mathematics with Computer Science and Management, Jason started Karleki after spending his summer working in the acquisitions group at private equity behemoth Blackstone. He attributes a lot of Karleki’s success to his past experiences working at various financial firms and tech startups.

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He is joined this summer by Mikayla Mattheis, Fred Mejia, Hanna Nazzaro, and Justin Ma.

“Every investment team looks for the same types of companies to invest in with a lot of redundant effort from each firm. There is no central platform where founders and CEOs advertise their companies to get investments.”

Karleki is a single platform where any and all companies can raise money and gain publicity. Karleki’s vision is to help companies be judged by their merit rather than by their connections.

Many entrepreneurs have a grand vision but do not have the connections to bring their vision to life. Karleki offers personal emails of all major venture capital investors, reducing the barriers for founders to reach out to investors and make their dreams come true. Traditionally, these coveted emails are held behind pricey paywalls by companies such as ZoomInfo or Pitchbook.

Karleki has launched at an opportune time. Most venture capital investors have only begun to realize how important the internet is for sourcing business. Angela Strange, a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz shares her insight, “99 out of 100 venture capitalists would not think that a startup would start their search for a venture capitalist through Google.”

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In terms of traction, Karleki already has thousands of top startups along with direct contacts of every major venture capital firm. Firms such as General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, Matrix Partners, Khosla Ventures, Coatue Management, Google Ventures, Draper Associates, and GGV Capital have already partnered with Karleki to source deal flow.

Jason looks forward to an unimaginable future. “Over the past decades, we’ve seen new businesses rise that completely disrupt traditional consumer industries, Amazon for consumer products, Airbnb for hotels/lodging, Uber for car rides. We are on the cusp of digital revolution. We predict that traditional B2B industries such as finance and law are next. Karleki is betting on this shift.”

The end goal? Karleki wants to make finding a business partner as easy as buying a Bluetooth speaker on Amazon.

Karleki plans to raise a Series A either in Fall 2021 or Winter 2022 to fund product development and market expansion into other industries.

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