Antonio Key

VC @blueprint @sunsetvc @KauffmanFellows

[Antonio Key @antoniokey]

I am immensely grateful and excited to join @KauffmanFellows Class 28! Looking forward to experiencing great growth over the next two years by engaging deeply with this global community and its best-in-class VC curriculum.

[Kauffman Fellows @KauffmanFellows]

MEET CLASS 28! We're thrilled to welcome 60 investors who we believe will change the face & course of the VC industry. With $55B in AUM, KF28 is a diverse cohort across sector, stage, geo (16 countries), gender & ethnicity (42% women; 55% POC). Congrats! https://t.co/p2khJLsAr3

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

The companies I love working with in office hours are the ones where the founder has a specific, weird, earned insight that nobody else has. Not "AI for X." A genuine edge that came from living inside a problem.

The ones that are dying almost always have the same pattern: technically competent founders building something nobody asked for, moving metrics that don't matter, avoiding the conversation with the one user who'd tell them the truth.

The lucky thing is that 2nd type of founder can become the 1st kind if they don't stand still, they are willing to talk to people, try things, and always seek high rate of learning.

[fai nur @faionur]

shout out to @TBPN for letting me share more about @thestatusai on air!

[Antonio Key @antoniokey]

@faionur @AbstractVC @generalcatalyst @usv go @faionur !

[fai nur @faionur]

Status has raised $17M in seed and Series A funding led by @AbstractVC, @generalcatalyst and @usv to let anyone step inside their favorite stories, become famous, and live a million different lives.

We quietly launched Status last year and grew to over 1 million users in 19 days - making us the fastest growing AI app since ChatGPT.

But we hit a (predictable) snag - the app was incredibly expensive to run. How do you serve millions of users without degrading the product with a cheap LLM?

So the team locked in: we rebuilt the whole experience, and our technical bets paid off. Our users now spend 35 minutes on average to (90 minutes each day for power users!), and millions of characters and worlds have been created. All by our users.

The next frontier of entertainment is mobile-first and deeply personal. Traditional mobile games take years to build and rarely stick. TV shows are fleeting in the age of streaming. Status is different. It is not a game you finish, it is a world you can live in.

Status is a new category entirely: Immersive Social Entertainment, and we believe strongly that it is the next great entertainment paradigm. We’ve 10x’d to millions in annual revenue in Q1 2026, we're just getting started.

On Status, you can be anyone.

[steve jang @stevejang]

There are fast clock speeds, then there are @fal clock speeds!

Using up our fund reserves for a third time in 20 months 🏦, we’re quadrupling down on the @fal founders and team, this time in their $140M Series D led by @sequoia and @sonyatweetybird with participation by friends at @kleinerperkins and @NVIDIA.

Since we led their Series A round at @KindredVentures in early 2024, Fal has achieved so many milestones in an incredibly short time: first million of revenue, then first enterprise customer, then later optimized its first set of high-fidelity generative video models, and now hitting global scale and breakout revenue velocity. This round helps team fal accelerate the future of real-time video, image, and audio models, as the foundational infrastructure layer and cloud for AI-generated content globally.

Congratulations @burkaygur @gorkem @isidentical and the entire team on their incredible hard-earned climb, and on another major milestone moment 🚀🚀🚀

https://t.co/vaDTcGPkVj

[Michael Seibel @mwseibel]

The MBAification of CS majors has reached new heights. Founders who want a clear formula for garanteed success and have no passion other than being better than the next guy. What happened to building for building's sake? What happened to being passionate about solving your user's problems? The new mindset is: how do I extract the most revenue out of a customer while providing the least value and raising at the highest valuation?

[Yana Welinder @yanabana]

Kraftful has been acquired by @Amplitude_HQ:

https://t.co/sYcTRe4ZS2

Our AI product will form a core new VOC part of the Amplitude platform as we announced on stage to the full Amplitude team yesterday. Here’s how we got here...

Six years ago, we set out to help teams build products users love. Stepping off the @YCombinator demo day stage, our journey was filled with macro headwinds, setbacks, and pivots. It was a slog. But we learned so much.

We finally landed on something truly special two years ago: helping product teams listen to users at scale. Over 50,000 product builders came to rely on our solution. We got named a Most Innovative Company by Fast Company, featured on Masters of Scale, and got some awesome product awards. It was magical to see product people from every type of tech company, major retail brands, car manufacturers, financial institutions, and beyond sign up for Kraftful every day because they heard great things from other products people. Last quarter, we hit record ARR growth — 87%! Things really started taking off.

But as a founder, you always want the greatest opportunity for your baby. Talking with @SpenserSkates, @Ajenstat, @dragones, @dazzeloid, and many other Amplitude folks, I realized there’s a much bigger opportunity together. AI has unlocked an entirely new way for teams to perfect products with insights from every feedback channel and user behavior. Together, we’ll make that vision a reality.

And frankly, it had to be Amplitude. Back when we started Kraftful, we piped our early data into every analytics platform, hunting for the best insights. Amplitude stood out. Long before they IPO’d and emerged as the clear market leader (Nasdaq: AMPL), it was already obvious in their product. Amplitude was built with the same care and taste that defined our own product journey at Kraftful.

Beginning this next chapter, I've been reflecting. The solo founder journey is not for the faint of heart. You're fundraising, building, selling, marketing, hiring, all at the same time. There's no cofounder to step in when you're tired or sick. Eventually, the biggest unlock is building an incredible team and I’m fortunate to have worked with the most amazing team: Renat, Shauna, @spencerpauly, @McIntirec. I'm proud of everything we've built together and excited to continue building at Amplitude.

When I shared the news with my son, his response was, “You can’t sell, I have so many great memories of Kraftful!” It makes sense, he was just two when we started. He's never known life without Kraftful. His baby sister was born during a record growth month. I took a single day of mat leave before diving back into putting out fires. We don’t talk enough about how deeply family is involved in building a startup. I’m so grateful for incredible support from @npew, my parents, sister, and the rest of my circle.

Huge thanks to @curtisbliu, @paladin314159, @pavan_pati, @DarahEaston, and the rest of the Amplitude team for the warm welcome ❤️

Here's to our next chapter!

[Antonio Key @antoniokey]

YC Demo Day W25 at the Palace of Fine Arts!

[MATT GRAY @matt_gray_]

Paul Graham on How Writing Reveals What Thinking Conceals:

[Antonio Key @antoniokey]

@chrisboettcher9 Gems 💎throughout this thread

[Ryan Hoover @rrhoover]

Shoutout to founders that consistently send monthly investor updates.

I appreciate it. I also know how difficult it can be when things aren't going well.

[Antonio Key @antoniokey]

@yanabana @Kraftful Love this! p.s. SF veteran move...get in the shade to get a good pic in front of the Painted Ladies that time of day

[Brandon Hoffman @BrandonHoffman_]

.@antoniokey and I are proud to be early investors in @SpillMob at @sunsetvc

Read about @phonz's amazing (rebounder) founder journey that has come out of the last few years of layoffs in big tech

👇

[Inc. @Inc]

In the wake of the big tech layoffs, a new generation of startup founders has emerged. Call them the rebounder founders. https://t.co/4kv0W8Ge0q

[Antonio Key @antoniokey]

@tecoker Base 10: 21 Savage

[Antonio Key @antoniokey]

@tecoker Base 10?

[Antonio Key @antoniokey]

@rubenharris @tecoker Who is 21 - 21?

[Talent x Opportunity @a16ztxo]

Our panelists Antonio Key, Ashtan Jordan, and Jesus Salas turned up the heat, hitting the founders with some tough questions! 🔥 The TxO founders rose to the occasion, delivering insightful answers that impressed. 🌟🎯

[Antonio Key @antoniokey]

@rubenharris @outrivalAI @Career_Karma 😤😤💨💨

[Ruben Harris @rubenharris]

1/ Today, we announce @OutRivalAI, designed to transform how businesses connect with their customers through Conversational AI, starting with Admissions Teams in Higher Education. After years of helping people break into tech w/ @Career_Karma we’re expanding our mission. Here is what we are focused on:

https://t.co/9waUi2rqH2