Henrik Werdelin spent the last 15 years, helping entrepreneurs to build large brands similar to Barkbox through their startup studio Prehype. Now, with your recent undertaking from New York TissuesHe betting that AI can assist him scale this process from the “dozens” of startups annually to “hundreds of thousands” aspiring business owners.
Time actually seems right. Mass layoffs in various industries meant that many employees considered their profession paths again, while AI tools significantly reduced the barrier in building digital products and services. In the center of this diagram Venna is the latest Werdelin undertaking, with the promise of helping “everyday entrepreneurs in creating AI for a million dollars” without the requirement of technical skills.
Werdelin’s journey from Prehype to Audos is currently reflecting a wider transformation in entrepreneurship. Prehype focused on cooperation with technology founders in order to build traditional startups that may raise hundreds of thousands and strive to leave a billion dollars.
Techcrunch says now: “We try to take all this knowledge, the whole methodology that we have created over the years of building all large companies and really tries to democratize it.”
The point is that “daily entrepreneurs” can feel a change, but they do not gladly experiment with so -called AI agents or know how to reach customers. Audos is completely satisfied to help them, providing these people with AI tools to build sophisticated products using natural language and using social media algorithms to find their area of interest customers.
“Facebook and many of these platforms are simply amazing algorithms and are amazing in determining [how to reach your customer] If you define a group of customers, “says Werdelin, who co -founded Audos with his prehy partner Nicholas Thorne. In fact, Audos uses this method to quickly check whether the founder’s idea has sustainable costs of customer acquisition.
The approach seems to work. Audos helped launch “low hundreds” companies from the moment of starting beta, and its customers discovered the platform through promoting on Instagram, asking “Have you ever thought about putting on something, but you don’t know where to go?” Among them, Werdelin says, he is a automotive mechanic who wants to help people evaluate repair quotes, a one who sells services “after the death of logistics”, virtual golf coaches and AI dietitians. In the past reference to companies value a billion dollars or so-called unicorns, they call these one- and two-seater “donkey” teams.
Everything underwent the same process: they clicked Audos’s commercial, his agent AI began the conversation to learn how these people want to solve and who they need to serve, and when he was completely satisfied with the answer, Audos got them as soon as possible.
When it comes to returns, Audos works on a fundamentally different model than traditional accelerators or enterprise capital. Instead of accepting equity, the company charges a 15% share in revenues from companies that helps to start. In return, the founders obtain up to USD 25,000, access to these business development tools powered by artificial intelligence and help in distribution (again, primarily through paid promoting in social media).
“We do not accept any equity in their activities,” says Werdelin. It doesn’t make sense. “We don’t think these companies can ever sell,” he says. “We are really inspired by shops with mother and pop, which are the spine of our society.”
The share of revenues is continued in infinity, as is the fees on the platform calculated by the Apple App Store. For the founders, this implies giving up a significant a part of their revenues at a constant level – a 15% reduction, which may cost entrepreneurs lots of of hundreds of dollars in time. Some undoubtedly recognize this compromise as invaluable; Others may consider whether long -term costs justify advantages.
The proposal of Audos’s value also raises other questions, considering how quickly the landscape changes. While Werdelin puts emphasis on helping the founders in building relationships with clients, it is not clear how much AI agents can actually deal with this work. There is also a matter of differentiation. As Werdelin easily admits, “the world is full of these tools” and they turn out to be quickly. What happens when entrepreneurs can access similar possibilities of AI without paying a fixed drop tax?
VCS Audos does not sound nervous about these scenarios. True Ventures led the Audos round value $ 11.5 million, and Tony Conrad’s partner explained the appeal when calling for Zoom this week. In addition to trust in Werdelin and Thorne, Conrad says: “I think there are only a lot of people” who may be completely satisfied to work with a platform like Audos.
Conrad attracts similarities to an instagram output value $ 1 billion with only 13 employees, which suggests that AI may allow much more lever, even if Audos – which currently employs only five people – does not chase the unicorn. As Werdelin explains: “After we have here, they are millions of people who can create a million dollars or half a million dollars that are real and change their lives.”
He adds Werdelin individually about why he turned Audos: “We try to find out how you earn a million companies that make a million dollars [in annual revenue]. It’s a trillion of dollars. “
In mid -2025 it does not sound crazy. Extending the advantages of entrepreneurship to individuals who traditionally didn’t have access to startup capital or technical skills is an increasingly convincing proposition, because traditional employment begins to seem less and less stable.
“We think that there should be someone who leaves and really helps the smaller entrepreneurs who build something that is not raised,” says Werdelin. “We believe that the world is better with greater entrepreneurship.”
Other investors of Audos are offline enterprise and bungalow capital, in addition to many famous angels investors-among them Niklas Zennstrom and Mario Schlosser.