The Venture Codex

Led · Seed · Jun 2025

Airial builds an AI-powered platform that plans end-to-end trips, generating multi-city itineraries including flights, hotels, transport, and daily activities. Users can create instant trips, specify preferences, view map views with transfer and wait times, click into items for overviews, reviews, and alternatives, and add influencer links. The product integrates dozens of APIs and combines techniques from DeepMind's AlphaGeometry paper with large language models to reason over logistics and thousands of variables. Founders Archit Karandikar and Sanjeev Shenoy, who previously worked at Meta, Google, Waymo and on Instagram Reels, lead the technical build. Airial reports “tens of thousands of monthly visitors” and says it is prioritizing user growth over revenue. Recent feature additions include trip sharing, collaborative trip building, car and bus multi-city transit options, and a social layer to view and modify friends’ trips. The company plans to launch iOS and Android apps and to add verticalized search for hotels, activities, and influencer videos.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2025

Tensec builds an AI-driven platform that lets import-export trading companies embed foreign exchange, cross-border payments, treasury and other financial tools directly into their workflows without any technical integration. Its "Powered by Tensec" model automates the technical, operational and compliance burdens, while U.S. banking services are delivered through partner Stearns Bank, N.A. The company is headquartered in San Francisco with additional offices in New York, Mexico City and São Paulo, and is led by alumni of PayPal, Meta, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Mastercard and Credit Karma. Earlier in 2025 Tensec raised a $12 million seed round led by Costanoa to build out its platform. With the newly announced credit facility, management intends to scale annual transaction volume from roughly $500 million to $5 billion and onboard more than 100 new trading partners over the next 18 months. This ten-fold capacity increase positions Tensec to capture a share of the cross-border payments market, which is projected to grow from $194.6 trillion in 2024 to $320 trillion by 2032. While not yet disclosing revenue, the company emphasizes rapid user and volume growth as its primary operating metrics.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2025

Axyon AI, founded in 2016, offers predictive AI-powered solutions for the investment management industry from Modena, Italy. Its core product set includes AI-driven analytics, AI-powered factors for model optimization, and the AI-Compass alert system for real-time market insights. The company leverages advanced artificial intelligence and deep learning to help investment managers optimize decision-making and enhance investment strategies. Axyon AI plans to use newly raised funds to expand market coverage, further develop its investment management solutions, and enhance AI explainability in the financial sector. The article does not disclose revenue, user counts, or other operating metrics. The company was founded by Giacomo Barigazzi, Daniele Grassi and Jacopo Credi and emphasizes scalable, research-led AI technologies that deliver timely signals and predictive insights. Axyon AI is a Modena, Italy–based AI fintech company led by CEO Daniele Grassi that develops AI-driven tools to uncover alpha opportunities and optimize indices on equities and ETFs. Its core products include AI-powered asset rankings and active indices that aim to help asset managers navigate complex market dynamics. The company integrates AI insights with index construction to provide more precise investment-management signals. Axyon intends to use the new funding to catalyze commercial expansion and advance its technological development initiatives. The round consolidates prior convertible-note financing from 2022, reflecting continued investor support for the company’s product roadmap. The company will leverage the partnership with new and existing investors to accelerate go-to-market efforts. Axyon AI offers a fully automated, web-based platform (Axyon IRIS®) that delivers AI-powered forecasts and investment strategies to asset managers. The company leverages advanced AI and deep learning for probabilistic time-series modelling to forecast and nowcast complex multivariate stochastic processes. Axyon says its models have proven performance and have become an integral part of some clients' investment processes. The firm plans to use new funding to evolve the Axyon IRIS flagship product and to support continued research & development. Management also intends to use the capital to support international expansion and to reinforce team growth.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2025

Augmenta provides a cloud-native AI design platform for the AEC industry that automates the sustainable design of buildings, with an initial focus on electrical systems. Its platform offers automated electrical system design services for design firms and subcontractors, aiming to reduce errors, rework, and costs. The company plans to expand the capabilities of its Electrical System Design (ESD) agent and accelerate development of Mechanical and Plumbing agents to deliver fully automated MEP/S design tools. Augmenta intends to use the new funding to build out its sales and support organizations to scale adoption. The company has a strategic partnership with ENG to automate electrical design modeling for subcontractors. The company is led by CEO Francesco Iorio. Augmenta develops the Augmenta Construction Platform (ACP), an AI-driven, cloud-based platform that automates building system design to generate error-free, constructible, code-compliant layouts in hours rather than weeks. Its first commercial module, the Electrical System Design (ESD) module, generates fully constructible electrical raceway routing for engineers and contractors and is on track for commercialization in Q1 2024. The platform uses artificial intelligence, including machine learning and mathematical optimization, and was founded by pioneers of generative design from Autodesk. Augmenta is running a formalized feedback program and commercial pilots with several electrical engineering firms and has a waitlist of almost 30 companies for its beta. The company plans to use the new capital to double its team over the next nine months across engineering, sales, and support, and to expand into adjacent plumbing and mechanical markets. It has been recognized as a Top 50 Preconstruction Future Disruptor by BuiltWorlds and was named to CB Insights’ 2023 AI 100 list. Augmenta has emerged from stealth with the Augmenta Construction Platform (ACP), a cloud-based platform that automates the design of building systems. ACP uses artificial intelligence, including machine learning and mathematical optimization, and generative design to produce error-free, constructible, code-compliant designs in hours instead of weeks. The company’s first product module is an Electrical System Design (ESD) module, for which a pilot program is being launched in partnership with Interstates, who co-designed and tested the module. Augmenta says ACP enables contractors and engineers to reduce material use, waste, and energy consumption by producing fully detailed, coordinated, and optimized designs. The company emerged from stealth after raising US$4.1 million in seed funding to accelerate ACP development, launch the ESD pilot, and grow sales, deployment, and customer-support teams. Augmenta was founded by an ex-Autodesk team that pioneered Generative Design and is based in Toronto.

Led · Seed · Feb 2025

Ignota Labs’ core product is SAFEPATH, a platform that applies deep learning, cheminformatics and bioinformatics to uncover the molecular and biological causes of drug toxicity and generate actionable fixes. The company focuses on identifying promising drug candidates abandoned for safety reasons—often 80–90% of the way to success—and re-engineering them to shorten development timelines and reduce costs. Ignota has in‑licensed a first-in-class metabolic health asset, resolved its safety concerns with SAFEPATH, and validated findings in rodent models. That asset is a PDE9A inhibitor the company plans to advance into early-stage clinical trials and which the company says could improve the lives of ~1.2 billion post‑menopausal women. Ignota’s approach targets a major industry problem—drug safety failures block over 56% of drugs from reaching patients—and aims to unlock multibillion-dollar value from rescued therapies. The company will use recent financing to expand its pipeline by acquiring additional distressed assets and progressing its lead program toward the clinic.