Three things worth your time: a solo founder raises $30M, a new protocol so agents can sign up like users, and ten solo founders join Solo Founders Program. Let's get into it!
Solo founder raises $30M at a $250M valuation.
“The round itself is the clearest example of what I built. Polsia handled the data room, briefed investors, and ran the back-and-forth on diligence. I joined the final calls. That was the job.”
Ben Cera just announced Polsia's $30M funding at a $250M valuation. Notably, the product ran most of its own fundraising process. Ben showed up for the final calls and signatures.
When Ben came on the Solo Founders Podcast in March, Polsia was at a $1.5M annualized run rate. Eighty days later, it surpassed $10M. Still zero human employees. 8,698 companies are now running on Polsia, growing 41% week over week.
Ben's thesis: if your company isn't 80% AI-automated, someone else's will be, and they'll outpace you on speed and cost. The other 20% is what you actually have to do yourself: taste, creativity, direction. That's the only durable advantage left to founders.
Make something agents want.
“The winners will not just make something people want. They will make something agents want.”
Michael Grinich, solo founder of WorkOS ($2B valuation), launched auth.md: an open protocol that lets agents register for a service.
Signup was built for humans. Buttons, forms, email verification, CAPTCHAs. Agents break all of it. Today, they either get blocked or pretend to be a person, and neither scales. Grinich's bet is that every product will eventually need an agent-registration surface, the way every app eventually needed a login box.
Most of you are building products that will have agents knocking before long. auth.md is free, open, and yours to implement.
P.S. Our podcast with Michael Grinich drops on YouTube tomorrow. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you don’t miss it.
Cohort #4 kicks off.
The 4th cohort of Solo Founders Program started last weekend at our “passing of the torch” retreat, where alumni welcomed the new cohort in.
The group includes one solo founder already at $400K ARR and a space tech founder with paying customers in under three months. We can't wait to see the progress they make building solo, together.
Early apps are open for the next cohort, starting in September.
Solo, together.
Kieran
