How to Skip Your Seed, Pre-Seed Lessons Building Afore to $500M+ AUM | Anamitra Banerji
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2025
⏱️ 96 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Anamitra Banerji is the Co-founder of Afore Capital, an SF-based VC firm that specializes in investing in pre-seed stage companies.
Our conversation gets into the evolution of Pre-Seed as a category, why Pre-Seed is more than option checks, what Afore looks for when backing founders before they even have a product, how to skip your Seed and go straight to a Series A, and how to run a fundraise process.
We also get into Afore’s Founder in Residence program, why every VC started an accelerator, how AI is changing venture, joining Twitter as the first PM, and how Oprah helped create the legendary verified checkmark.
Thanks to Gaurav Jain and Derrick Li at Afore for their help brainstorming topics for Anamitra.
And special thanks to Bolt and Warp for supporting this episode.
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Timestamps:
(4:00) Afore: Starting in 2016 to build the pre-seed category
(8:11) The unstructured data Afore underwrites at pre-seed
(11:21) Pre-seed is determining bronze from gold
(16:03) Why pre-seed is more than option checks
(20:33) The secret to raising a Series A
(23:20) Running a tight fundraise process
(32:05) Skipping your Seed round
(34:01) How to measure obsession in a founder
(39:20) Knowing when to follow-on
(40:54) Figuring out what really matters in a business
(42:36) Afore’s Founder in Residence program
(49:44) Pros / Cons of more access to capital for founders
(52:27) Two reasons YC made every VC launch an accelerator
(1:01:05) Why AI is forcing VCs to invest earlier
(1:06:55) Will AI commoditize software?
(1:08:29) Growing up in India, starting his first company
(1:10:39) Coming to the US for school, joining Overture + Yahoo
(1:14:05) Joining Twitter as first PM, creating the Verified check for Oprah
(1:18:55) Building Twitter’s first ad product
(1:20:28) Why non-founders can’t take foundational risks
(1:23:02) Starting Afore for the Pre-Seed opportunity
(1:27:47) Raising Afore Fund 1
(1:31:14) How to raise your first fund
(1:33:33) Was Turner the best Afore intern ever?
Referenced
Afore’s Founder in Residence Program:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 64% of our companies that we've invested in across Fund 1 and Fund 2, skip the seed and went straight to a Series A. |
| 0:06.5 | And that's impressive for somebody who might not know because you have to sell part of the company. |
| 0:11.2 | Correct. |
| 0:11.7 | You've saved 10% on dilution. |
| 0:13.1 | You've saved 10% of the company for yourself by skipping a stage. |
| 0:17.3 | Which is always, always good. |
| 0:19.0 | Because the end of the day, the math is when the company exits, how much of the company does the founder own? Yeah. Right? And the less you sell along the way, the more you own. Welcome to the Peele. I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital. Today's guest is Anamitra Benerji, co-founder of a four capital, investing in and leading pre-seat rounds. Back in 2016, we found that many seed investors weren't really seeding. |
| 0:41.2 | Our conversation gets to the evolution of pre-seed as a category, how to skip your seed and go straight to series A, |
| 0:46.7 | and what a four looks for when backing founders before they even have a product. |
| 0:50.2 | It's called the Dark Arts. |
| 0:51.7 | The Dark Arts. |
| 0:52.4 | It is an investment in a founder's ability to succeed, their potential, not necessarily at the point of investment, but an investment in their ability to grow. |
| 1:03.4 | Why pre-seed is more than option checks and how to measure obsession. |
| 1:06.6 | Get up when you fall down is resilience, and that allows you to continue and persevere. |
| 1:11.6 | Because you should be willing to persevere against all odds. |
| 1:15.6 | The secret to raising a Series A. |
| 1:17.6 | As a founder's job should be to have as many options as possible. |
| 1:20.6 | Why every VC started an accelerator. |
| 1:23.6 | And so many seed funds who were reliant on deals from YC saw that entry price suddenly shoot |
| 1:29.5 | up. |
| 1:30.5 | A forced founder in residence program. |
| 1:32.4 | What we're looking for is really, really interesting people. |
... |
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