The Nichole Wischoff Podcast

Come behind the scenes with founders of iconic companies highlighting both their journey and their latest news.

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

American Turbines is out of stealth today! They are building a new class of small, highly manufacturable gas turbines for rapid-to-deploy energy generation. And here in SF.

​Abundant energy is the soil from which everything else grows: intelligence, industry, the next century of work.

Super lucky to support @Johnmcelhone from day one of @amturbines as their seed lead investor. Showcase at HQ for interested customers, hires and investors this week. Onward!

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Longevity wasn't really a focus for me until I turned 30 and now I'm all in on how to improve sleep, peptides, etc. Sat down with @harrygestetner1 to learn more about sleep. Turns out that the number one variable that impacts sleep quality is body temperature. Listen in on how he is optimizing for this with @orionsleep:

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Model progress is no longer constrained by architecture, but by access to high-quality, human-generated data. Scraped internet data is finite, low-signal and increasingly synthetic. Kled AI pays real people to upload authentic, real world content task by task in their mobile app.

We are super excited to back @avipat_
and @useKled as they build a massive data marketplace. If you are in need of a great data partner, reach out! More from us here (we were not investors when we filmed):

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

The world needs more hardware. More satellites, medical devices, robots, etc. The electronic component supply chain is a mess and can't currently sustain the demand across categories. We are leading a $3M seed in Rama who is solving several supply chain challenges for distributors. More from me and the team:

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Nearly impossible to launch out of stealth or announce your latest fundraise in any reasonable amount of time with any relevant tech news outlet. Huge issue we have for our own companies. I want to open up our podcast studio and podcast as an outlet for folks with news they want to share. Have a huge following across channels. If you have a big announcement, let me know and come swing by to chat about it. Our team will cover it and we can move within the week. PR as a service...

[The Nichole Wischoff Podcast @FirstMoneyInVC]

@NWischoff @bgurley We need him on the pod

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

"There isn't a trillion dollar opportunity in fintech anymore, so the only reason I would leave Revolut is for another trillion dollar opportunity solving a complex problem"

@alanchanguk had zero fintech experience before joining Revolut and became CRO helping scale the company for 7+ years. He decided to dive into energy, also without any experience and has scaled Fuse Energy to $400M in revenue and to a $5B valuation in 3 years.

Listen in as to how and why Alan is dedicated to building a massive energy business with an impact:

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

There is a massive AI opportunity within the marketing category. Listen in on Checkmate's master plan to own the enterprise marketing stack for brands with agentic AI:

cc: @law_and_rorder and @rhobusiness for the support

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Nicole has built the most viral and exclusive cookie company from her 1-bedroom apartment in SF (and works full time in tech). It started as a family cookie draft each week where everyone would vote on the flavor they wanted. She started NoCrumbs Cookies in March and sells out in 60 seconds every weekend, 75 boxes, 4 cookies. New flavors you vote on every week. She has grand plans of opening a brick and mortar location in Russian Hill in early 2026. Listen in on the entire story of both nailing marketing and baking yummy cookies that people want! (The Infatuation SF tried 17 times to secure cookies before they succeeded):

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Easy to see the $11T global TAM of the construction industry and assume its ripe for technology. While that may be true, there are less than a handful of companies who have successfully succeeded in serving some segment of the market (Procore, Built Technologies, Plangrid, Kojo).
Unlimited Industries just announced a massive $12M seed round to build an AI-native vertically integrated construction company. More specifically, building the general contractor of the future. While I am largely bearish on this front, this was a very interesting conversation with @alexmodon who thinks hes up for the challenge:

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Launching a newsletter alongside the podcast! Up this week:

-Notable Founder Journeys: @awxjack @vxanand
-New VC Funds: @ElizabethTurner (Valkyrie) & @geoffwoo @jakepaul @LoganPaul (Antifund)
-VC Hot Market Takes (Meritech, a16z, Coatue)
-Our latest Episodes (@newlimit , @superpower, @paces_ai, Seel, Stell Engineering)

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

One of the more important topics of conversation right now is around energy and where it will come from to support the future of AI (and humanity). Had a fantastic conversation with @james_mcwalter the CEO and cofounder @paces_ai. If you haven't heard of Paces, dig in. Wish I invested! A few notable takeaways from our conversation:

-Only the hyperscalers (or players with billions to spend) can keep timelines for major data center builds because they can afford to buy out existing orders from folks who have short wait times for things like transformers etc
-Google is the only player who seems to still care about their carbon footprint and building clean
-Where the opportunities are for new startups to build hardtech companies that will make a huge impact

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

PERSONAL NEWS: Launching The Nichole Wischoff Show because we need more podcasts in tech. Truthfully, this is an entirely selfish endeavor as my curiosity is insatiable. Tune in weekly @FirstMoneyInVC (still working on changing the handle) to hear from the smartest people in the world tackling critical problems. Aging, energy, fertility, construction, you name it. When I'm not extremely pregnant these will be boots on the ground touring facilities in hard hats and getting a more behind the scenes look at epic companies.

Thank you to our sponsor @rhobusiness for supporting us and being an incredible partner to several of our companies.

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Super fascinating topic is how exactly do we reverse aging. Back in 2022 @brian_armstrong @jacobkimmel and @byersblake started New Limit to figure out if its possible. NewLimit has raised nearly $250M and is recently valued at $1.6B. Listen in to hear more about their progress and what it means to live a longer and healthier life:

[The Nichole Wischoff Podcast @FirstMoneyInVC]

Listen in on our latest episode!

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Seel has quietly scaled to nearly nine figures in ARR in a few short years with a 30 person team in SF. You have probably never heard of them. Listen in for Zacks (CEO/founder) first interview ever on how he did it:

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Sat down with Malory Mclemore (CEO/cofounder) at Stell Engineering to hear the latest on how they closed $8M in government contracts over the past 60 days and why she believes that developer tools for hardware engineering is their $10B+ opportunity.

[Nichole Wischoff @NWischoff]

Relaunching the podcast @FirstMoneyInVC!

Kicking things off with @alexrkonrad who spent over a decade at Forbes covering tech/venture and managed Forbes 30U30 and the Midas List. He started his own media company early this year called @UpstartsMediaCo.

We dig into everything including his time at Forbes, how VCs are similar to reporters, how the market has changed in tech over the years, how you monetize a media company and more.

Be on the look out for regular episodes with founders and their companies that you should know about.

[The Nichole Wischoff Podcast @FirstMoneyInVC]

YT: https://t.co/v2iVyX89k3
Apple: https://t.co/SPQP1iWT2L
Spotify: https://t.co/rDEJLtMkDr

[The Nichole Wischoff Podcast @FirstMoneyInVC]

Pretty nuts to go from founding one of the top real estate brokerages in NYC to an AI startup founder backed by Left Lane (all at once). @RyanSerhant
raised $45M to scale SERHANT and to build S.MPLE, the vertical AI solution for real estate agents to do their day to day work.

Ryan also has a hit Netflix show called Owning Manhattan, is the author of several bestselling books and used to be a hand model. Listen in to hear his story. It all starts with his first transaction and $9,000.

[The Nichole Wischoff Podcast @FirstMoneyInVC]

YT: https://t.co/Yx43pepCKi
Apple: https://t.co/k3Az7QQSkE

[The Nichole Wischoff Podcast @FirstMoneyInVC]

Imagine having the audacity to start an electric aircraft company with zero experience and going on to raise $2B and taking that company public in record time.
Don't miss this weeks episode with @adamgoldstein13, founder and CEO @flyarcher