Every year, US healthcare providers collectively write off more than ~$125B in revenue they already earned. Not because the care wasn’t delivered or because the patients didn’t owe it. But because the financial infrastructure connecting clinical encounters to insurance reimbursements is broken. 

After care is provided, providers will send a claim from their electronic health record, and it passes through a billing platform, a clearinghouse, and a payer portal before - maybe - resulting in a deposit. At no point does a single system know the full story, and revenue often disappears into the gaps. As Eliana Berger, Joyful Health’s cofounder and CEO puts it: providers never knew when they were going to get paid, by who, or on what timeline. This means that practices routinely leave 10-30%+ of their revenue on the table. 

Most people think this is a solved problem, and revenue cycle management is a crowded market with no shortage of vendors in this space. But Joyful Health was founded on a different premise - building the map and infrastructure to help healthcare practices recover revenue. 

Joyful Health recently announced their $22M funding to date and Series A led by CRV. The Council was the only firm that participated in their pre-seed round. Being willing to underwrite teams at the earliest stage makes a magnitude of difference for us and results in meaningful markups as early as Series A for our LPs. We are able to take on that risk by investing in founders like Eliana and Warren who embody what we look for in a First Builder turned founder. We are proud to continue supporting this team, from sourcing their founding data engineer, to continuing to be a sounding board as they scale. This round comes a full year ahead of schedule as they saw a clear opportunity to pour fuel on the fire by expanding the team, drive product roadmap, and support demand upmarket from enterprise healthcare organizations. 

We chatted with Eliana on the First Builders podcast again (here’s their first episode with us) to get more details on the raise, what it’s like building at this speed, and what’s ahead for Joyful Health.

“It’s truly lightning in a bottle. I give all of that credit to the team, they make it very easy.” 

Why We Invested: First Builders Don’t See “Crowded” 

At The Council, we back founders we call “First Builders” - people who have lived inside the problem deeply and have been at high slope environments. The conventional wisdom on revenue cycle management is that it’s a saturated market with lots of players and lots of tools. 

This framing isn’t wrong, but it’s not the whole picture. While the supply side is crowded, the demand side remains largely unserved, as healthcare practices and systems are still looking for the tools that actually work for the people doing the billing every day. Joyful Health found that gap and went straight for it. 

What made us confident was the founders’ conviction and how they arrived at the solution. Before writing a single line of code, Eliana and Warren spent almost a year embedded in over a dozen healthcare practices as a fractional CFO. They sat with billing teams and saw the messy reality of piecing together information to manage revenue payouts. They earned the right to build a solution by spending months in the mess, and that’s exactly what separates the companies that find durable PMF from those that iterate their way into the wrong answer. 

Over the past couple of years since investing, we saw how Eliana and the team build upon the trust they earned from the initial practices. Distribution, which is notoriously challenging in the healthcare sector, was easier than expected for Joyful Health. They led with education, as there’s not a good way to learn medical billing today except through costly trial and error or outdated certification courses. Joyful Health hosted educational workshops, dinners, community events, and partnering with well known healthcare communities like Out of Pocket, and consistently delivering value to practices before asking for anything in return. 

Practices often already trust the Joyful Health team as an authority on RCM, and that trust translated into customers. This type of trust is hard to manufacture, and it’s also why distribution has felt, in Eliana’s words, “a lot more natural” than she expected! 

What’s Next for Joyful Health: 

The team has already doubled over the last quarter or two, and Eliana expects it to double again by the end of the year. They are taking on larger customers, expanding into new specialities, and automating more of the recovery workflow. We’re proud to have believed in Eliana, Warren, and the Joyful Health team from day zero. Watching how they have built with focus on the customers is exactly why we believe First Builders are the founders to back. 

If you’re a fast-growing healthcare practice looking to recover revenue you’re leaving on the table, or a talented person who wants to help solve one of the biggest problems in healthcare and fintech - reach out and we’d love to put you in touch!

We Made a Few Predictions for 2026

As we continue deploying Fund II, we’ve been reflecting on where this AI cycle is actually heading - beyond the hype cycles.

We shared the following predictions with our LPs, and we’re sharing them publicly because we believe they matter for founders, operators, and investors alike.

• Domain experts will outperform generalist AI founders. Most industrial tech fails because outsiders build solutions for problems they don't understand. In 2026, we expect generalist AI founders to underperform domain-expert founders, especially in manufacturing, legal, and healthcare. The founders who spent a decade in pharma QC or ran operations at a logistics company will build stickier products than the Stanford CS grad pattern-matching from the outside. This is core to why we back First Builders.

• Speaking of First Builders - The best pre-seed founders will be 35-45, not 25. This is something we've believed for a while but haven't said publicly: there's a massive opportunity in funding founders 10-15 years into their careers. Despite being at ages where they may have spouses and kids (which some investors assume means less output), they're masters at ruthless prioritization, outcomes-based working, and the kind of leadership that inspires. Given their higher-than-average opportunity cost in considering whether to found a company, they choose areas where they have deep insights and networks. All of this allows them to leapfrog typical first-time-founder pitfalls, ultimately hitting product market fit and locking in GTM motions faster.

• Services-first AI will win in complex industries. More winning AI companies will launch as services businesses first, building software on top of proprietary operational data. It's risky as team structure needs to be intentional from day one, but in industries with messy workflows and poor data infrastructure, it's often the only way to build a real moat. We're already seeing this across our portfolio.

• If there's a correction, consumer AI gets cut first; essential-industry AI accelerates. Essential industries don't disappear in downturns: they get more desperate for solutions. Healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics still need to operate, and budget pressure makes the ROI case for automation stronger, not weaker. This is why we focus on countercyclical sectors and invest pre-FOMO.

This is why we focus on sectors that endure boom and bust cycles.

As a reminder, if you are a First Builder building vertical AI for an essential (think: complex, foundational) industry like healthcare, law, or manufacturing, we’d love to hear from you.

Bringing the Essential Economy POV Across Ecosystems

Over the past weeks, we have been on the ground across healthcare, emerging managers, and LP ecosystems. Highlights so far include:

• Rachel Tsui spoke on two panels at JPM Healthcare Week in SF - Women’s Health & Longevity and Early-Stage Investing in Health Tech.

• Amber Illig represented The Council Fund at the inaugural Future Titans Emerging Manager Summit in Austin.

• Rachel & Amber hosted LP dinners in Atlanta and Bentonville bringing together university endowments, local investors, and CEOs aligned with the future of the essential economy.

• Amber joined the Inversion NYC Summit, designed to connect LPs and GPs in a curated setting.

We’re hosting private founder and LP dinners in DC, SF, San Diego, LA, and additional cities in the coming months. If you’re an LP aligned with our thesis, reach out to community@thecouncil.co for more details. We’d love to include you.

We’re Opening Up Our Operator Investing Playbook

Most tech leaders want to angel invest. Very few know how to start and build a repeatable strategy.

After 80+ early-stage investments, we organized our internal frameworks, decision models, and templates into a practical investing playbook for our private operator community.

For the first time, we’re making it public. Join our Angel & LP Investing for Leaders course on Maven! Build a high-conviction investing strategy - from thesis formation to sourcing to diligence.

• Cohort begins: March 27, 2026

• Apply by March 20 to secure your spot

We’re intentionally keeping this inaugural cohort small. If you want to move from “curious” to “confident” in investing, this is for you.

You can also watch our recently recorded webinar outlining what the six-week cohort includes.

Live Learnings on How LP and Angel Investors Track Performance

Join Rachel Tsui, Partner at The Council Fund, for our upcoming webinar on March 17th at 9 AM PT which will walk you through LP How LP and Angel Investors Track Portfolio Performance with our Partner, Rachel Tsui.

We’ll focus on essentials for this important topic such as:

• The Key Metrics LPs and Angel Investors Track

• How to Track Your Portfolio in One Place

• How Tracking Improves Your Investment Decisions

Understanding your portfolio is a must! It helps investors evaluate managers, identify patterns, and make informed decisions.

Don’t Miss Out on Joining Our Upcoming Events for Deeper Learnings

• The Power of Capital: Angel Investing That Actually Moves the Needle

  • Join The Fourth Effect, Play Money, The Council and Wealth Catalyst for a curated, investor-first breakfast in San Francisco designed for angels and angel-curious operators who want the context, confidence, and next steps to actually write their first check and invest with their values.

  • March 31 @ 8:30 - 11:00 am | San Francisco

  • RSVP Link

• Owning Innovation: A Leader’s Guide to Angel & LP Investing

  • A practical, operator-led introduction to angel and LP investing for innovation leaders looking to deploy capital, expand influence, and support founders across the company lifecycle.
    
    In celebration of Women's History Month, WIN (Women in Innovation) x The Council invites you to an in-person session designed to demystify alternative investing and open the door for more women leaders to step onto the cap table.

  • March 19 @ 5:30-7:30 pm | San Francisco

  • RSVP Link (Promo Code: THECOUNCIL)

Catch Up On All of Our Latest Podcasts

Shifting from Hardware Executive to Scaling Caregiving - Duanni Hurd, CEO of Starlight Caregivers

From SaaS to driving scientific impact - David Apple, CEO of Shark Tooth Biotech

Redesigning food supply chain platforms - Charles Julius, Co-Founder & CEO of Loamy

Bringing tech product leadership to health  systems - Lina Scroggins, SVP and Chief Product Officer at Mercy

Reindustrializing today’s manufacturing through the assembly process  - Filip Aronshtein, CEO of Dirac

https://www.thecouncil.co/podcast

Know more First Builders who should be on our podcast? Nominate them for our team’s consideration.

Check out our team’s favorite clips from our podcast episodes

Watch Amber’s favorite clip featuring The Council portfolio founder Charles Julius as he talked about his journey from lawyer to software engineer to growth at Procore ($11B IPO) to founder at Loamy. Charles reflected on the most inspiring leaders he encountered throughout his career and how he carries that into building his own company Loamy today.

Watch Rachel’s favorite clip featuring David Apple of Shark Tooth Biotech as he talked about what it was like to build his expertise on a rare disease without formal training in biochemistry, and how AI really unlocks access to expertise - having “10 PhDs at his fingertips” to dissect and analyze large amounts of research data!

Discover open roles at our fast-growing performing portfolio companies!

Let us know why you might be the perfect fit and we may be able to get your resume to the top of the pile.

• Dirac is the AI-driven, model-based manufacturing platform automating assembly workflows.

  • Recently was highlighted by Anduril’s COO on TBPN sharing how Dirac is a key component of how Anduril explains modern manufacturing to its customers.

  • Open roles include Director of Underwriting, Account Executive, and Software Engineers.

• GC AI is the AI tool for in-house legal counsel.

  • Recently hosted their first customer summit, bringing together 150 senior in-house counsel leaders across their 1,000+ customer base.

  • Open roles include VP of Finance, Founding Product Manager, and Head of Partnerships.

• NOX METALS is building the fastest metals processing factories in North America. 

  • Recently featured in Y Combinator’s Request for Startups as they share their perspective on why reindustrialization for modern factories is a key opportunity.

  • Open roles include a Software & Machine Engineer in LA. 

• Joyful Health is building an AI-powered financial operating system that simplifies revenue operations, so clinicians and teams can focus on what matters most.

  • Recently partnered with one of the top healthtech communities, Out of Pocket, on a revenue cycle management course for digital health companies.

  • Open roles include Chief of Staff, Founding Growth Lead, and AI Engineer.

Our exclusive operator network continues to deepen

The Council Angels is an application-based network of First Builders that angel invest together and collaborates with our venture fund.

Spring Cohort Applications are Live

The best operators don’t just build companies.They build ownership. If you’re a tech leader ready to move from operator to investor, this is for you.

In 2025 alone:

• 10 SPVs launched

• 120+ companies vetted

• 30+ educational webinars

• Quarterly member events across SF, LA, NYC, and DC

Membership includes:

• Vetted deal flow across essential industries

• Weekly live pitch calls

• Co-investment opportunities alongside The Council Fund

• A bonus six-week Angel & LP Investing course

Apply by Friday, March 20, 2026 for the Spring Cohort so that we can fast track your interview.

Thank you from The Council Team!

Pictured (left to right): Vanessa Samaniego, Amber Illig, Rachel Tsui

 About Us: The Council Fund is an operator-led venture firm investing in First Builders transforming our most essential industries like manufacturing, legal, and healthcare as part of Software’s Third Act.

From Thesis to Traction: Our Highlights from 2025

2025 has been a big year at The Council! This was the year our thesis moved from conviction to proof. From our new branding to breakout portfolio wins, we’re proud to share our highlights with you. 

• Doubled down on high-slope operators in the new tech mafia as our founder archetype and launched The First Builders Podcast with 21 episodes to date.

Navigating healthcare policy changes - Cameron Carter, CEO of Rosarium Health

Scaling outside of Silicon Valley - Jack Greco, Co-Founder, COO & CFO of ACV Auctions

Carta’s former head of sales on democratizing wealth for founders - Alessandro Chesser, Founder of Dynasty

The voice AI platform for maintenance - Zacharie Esmili, Co-Founder & CEO of Quintess AI

Building the frontier law, tech, and policy - Prashanthi Raman, former head of gov’t affairs at Cruise & Lyft

https://www.thecouncil.co/podcast

• Started deploying from Fund II and invested in 4 companies including Rosarium Health, Quintess AI, Nox Metals, and one healthcare company in stealth mode. These are companies we believe will define their categories.

• Announced GC AI’s (a Fund I portfolio company) accelerated Series B $60M fundraise after they rocketed from $1M to $10.8M+ ARR in less than one year.

Listen to our special bonus episode with Cecilia Ziniti as she walks us through what it takes to scale and maintain a company growing at hyperspeed.

• Released our new official Council branding to reflect our evolution from a grassroots angel investing community to an institutional VC firm. Our updated brand reflects our operating principles: 

  • Technical

  • Fast

  • Substantive

  • Trusted

  • Demystifying 

  • Quiet Power

• Hosted our Annual General Meeting (AGM) in November at the Hanwha AI Center in SF! It was a great opportunity to share fund updates with our LPs, founders, and friends. We included three panels with portfolio founders on the hardest problems they're solving.

  • Record-breaking AI Adoption in $1B+ Enterprises with Loamy and Quintess AI

  • Signed ≠ Success: Driving Utilization in a Policy-Heavy World with Rosarium Health and Joyful Health 

  • Scaling Sustainably in the Age of AI with Siena and GC AI

Thanks to all of our LPs and community who believed in our vision from Day 1.

As a reminder, if you are a First Builder building vertical AI for an essential (think: complex, foundational) industry like healthcare, law, or manufacturing, we’d love to hear from you.

Check out our team’s favorite clips from our podcast episodes

Watch Amber’s favorite episode featuring Jack Greco, Co-Founder, COO & CFO of ACV Auctions, on what it really looks like to reach hypergrowth and then make the choice to step away. Jack shares how, after years of working 100+ hour weeks, he left the company with just $40K in savings to prioritize his family - never expecting his equity to be worth anything. Six months later, ACV Auctions went public at a $3.85B valuation.

Watch Rachel’s favorite episode featuring Prashanthi Raman, former head of government affairs at both Cruise and Lyft, on why policy shouldn’t be treated as a blocker in tech. Prashanthi breaks down how, when you’re building in a new category or at the frontier, government affairs can be a powerful catalyst; it opens doors, drives revenue, and accelerates growth.

Discover open roles at our fast-growing performing portfolio companies!

Let us know why you might be the perfect fit and we may be able to get your resume to the top of the pile.

• Flex is the AI-native private bank for owners to manage their personal spend and business revenue in one seamless platform.

  • Recently announced their $60M Series B led by Portage.

  • Open roles include Director of Underwriting, Account Executive, and Software Engineers.

• GC AI is the AI tool for in-house legal counsel.

  • Recently raised their $60M Series B at a $550M valuation and serving 1000+ in-house legal teams across 50 countries and continuing to grow quickly.

  • Open roles include Head of Revenue, Enterprise Sales, and Engineers.

• NOX METALS is building the fastest metals processing factories in North America. 

  • Recently their founder made Forbes 30 Under 30.

  • Open roles include Business Operations Associate. 

• Siena creates empathetic AI CX agents designed for commerce. 

  • Recently launched their Reviews Agent with Okendo and hit 100 billion tokens with OpenAI. 

  • Open roles include Account Executives and Product Managers.

Our exclusive operator network continues to deepen

The Council Angels is an application-based network of First Builders that angel invest together and collaborates with our venture fund.

Sharing Our Operator Network 2025 Highlights

We continued focusing on accepting the best operators into our angel network which powered vetted deal flow on a daily basis, collaborative group diligence calls, and ultimately led to 10 council-backed SPVs. Here are the key end of year stats you should know.

Educational Partnerships on Alternative Investing

Our goal of providing valuable insights on finance, angel/VC investing, and the startup ecosystem led us to form partnerships with Women in Healthtech and the Women on Boards Project in 2025. Together, we delivered educational workshops on alternative investing, with a focus on demystifying angel and LP investing for senior leaders. In 2026, we’re looking to bring this content to select senior leadership organizations. If you’re interested in partnering with us, please reach out to community@thecouncil.co.

Thank you from The Council Team!

Pictured (left to right): Vanessa Samaniego, Amber Illig, Rachel Tsui

 About Us: The Council Fund is an operator-led venture firm investing in First Builders transforming our most essential industries like manufacturing, legal, and healthcare as part of Software’s Third Act.

We're launching a new brand today.

Six years ago, The Council Angels started as a grassroots angel investing community. After some early success angel investing and growing the network, I launched The Council Capital in late 2021. What began as a side project has evolved into an institutional VC firm backing First Builders: senior operators from high-growth companies who are transforming essential industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and law with technology.

Why Now

These trillion-dollar industries are finally reaching their technological tipping point. Healthcare alone is a $4.3T sector where infrastructure, workflows, and systems haven't fundamentally changed in decades. The venture ecosystem is waking up to this opportunity, but we've been positioning for it since day one. The rebrand reflects that conviction: we're not just another VC firm. We're the firm purpose-built to identify and support the operators who will transform these industries.

This rebrand was also a full-circle moment for me. Growing up, my dad ran a digital branding agency for 15 years. Around our dinner table, we'd discuss logos, strategies, and ICPs. He's the reason I fell in love with company building before I even knew what VC was. When it came time to evolve our brand, I brought him in to help. (Here's your nudge to work with your parents if you can!)

A full-circle moment with my dad, Ed Illig, who taught me to love building brands long before I knew what venture was.

What changed

We're building an institutional VC firm

Our old logo worked for a grassroots community. But we've grown up: we've backed more than 30 First Builders when they were just tiny teams with early products and little to no revenue. Only four years in, our portfolio is generating $96M in annualized revenue with markups across the portfolio by firms like Founders Fund, Coatue and Scale Venture Partners. We needed a brand that could stand alongside the best firms in our industry and signal where we're headed: top 1% performance, decoupled from boom and bust cycles.

Our new look is designed to stand alongside institutional giants that we collaborate with and invest ahead of

We dropped the "the"

Dropping "the" in the logo gives us more flexibility in placement. A lot of folks still say "The Council" out loud including myself. I'm not planning on stopping and neither should you :)

We let the operating principles that guide our work drive the new look

These aren't just values. They're the edge that lets us identify and support operators who will build the next wave of breakthrough companies:

Technical: We invest in areas we know and can help with: vertical AI and software applied to industrial sectors (Dirac), healthcare (Rezilient Health), and critical functions (GC AI). Our firm is built by engineers and scientists: I studied mechanical engineering and my partner Rachel Tsui has a PhD in biochemistry. We both caught the tech bug but lean on our analytical roots to evaluate companies. This technical fluency lets us spot operators solving real problems, not just chasing trends. 

A palette designed to capture the depth of the essential industries vertical AI is transforming.

Fast: First Builders are high-slope operators who created processes, products, and teams from scratch at prior companies. We've seen time and again that they leapfrog typical first-time-founder pitfalls, reaching product-market fit faster and scaling strategically from there. Our speed in diligence and decision-making matches theirs. We can move from first call to term sheet in weeks when we see the right profile.

Substantive: We focus on what endures. For us, being substantive means grounding our work in quality, from the rigor of our investment decisions to the depth of the ideas we share. We take seriously the fiduciary responsibility that comes with deploying our LPs’ capital, and this discipline enables us to drive top-tier performance while remaining decoupled from boom-and-bust cycles. It’s why we invest pre-FOMO and partner with First Builders tackling critical problems in essential fields like healthcare, law, and manufacturing.

Trusted: Fiduciary responsibility is important to us in everything we do. LPs trust us to manage their capital, and founders trust us as their first call on a bad day. Through The Council Angels network of 220+ operators and our First Builders podcast, we build relationships with potential founders years before they're ready to start companies. When they do, we're not strangers pitching them. Instead, we're partners who've already earned their trust.

A logo that reflects who we are: technical at the core, fast when it counts, substantive in our decisions, and trusted by the operators we support and LPs we serve.

Demystifying: We share topics in plain language. VC is riddled with financial jargon. We break it down so that any new angel, founder, or LP in our community can get clarity on what actually matters. This accessibility helps us source better. When operators understand venture, they're more likely to reach out when they're ready to build.

Quiet Power: Behind the curtain, we help founders get deals done by building relationships with downstream firms and keeping a pulse on the market. We also help founders navigate tricky situations that will never see the light of day on social media. This behind-the-scenes work is where real value gets created and where trust is earned.

We chose Roboto and Roboto Mono for their clarity and precision. Roboto keeps our communication approachable and readable across long-form writing, while Roboto Mono reflects the technical roots of our work. Together, they give us a type system that’s modern, accessible, and built for depth.

The new brand reflects where we’re at now and where we're going. We've spent six years building the infrastructure to find and support First Builders before anyone else sees them coming. Four years into Fund I, with $96M in annualized revenue generated and a portfolio performing well above top decile, the thesis is proving out.

This is just the beginning.

In early-stage building, time compresses. The right idea, with the right founders, in the right moment, can unlock velocity that feels almost surreal - until it happens.

That’s the story of GC AI, the AI platform redefining how in-house legal teams work. We invested in their first round of capital 18 months ago when they were early product and pre-revenue. Today GC AI serves over 1,000 legal departments across 50 countries. On the heels of explosive growth with much more to come, they’ve raised a $60 million Series B at a $555 million valuation, led by Scale Venture Partners and Northzone, with participation from Sound Ventures, Aglaé Ventures, SilverCircle, News Corp - and us, at The Council.

It’s one of the fastest and most focused ascents we’ve seen in this cycle of vertical AI. For us, it represents exactly what we mean when we talk about First Builders: the founders who don’t wait for permission to define a new category.

Hear Directly from Cecilia: What’s Top of Mind in this Moment?

We invited Cecilia back on the First Builders podcast to talk about what the last year has been like and how this $60M will help to accelerate GC AI. In addition to the Series B news, it was an extra special day since she spoke with us on the 2nd anniversary of creating GC AI. Key takeaways from our call include: 

• Building for her former self as an in-house lawyer

• Channeling her ex-Amazon “Day One” mentality as they grow

• Hiring people who truly care to maintain institutional excellence 

• Differences in fundraising between Series A and Series B

Watch or listen on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify!

Cecilia also shares key wisdom for founders to consider when balancing fundraising and building a business: “I don’t want people telling me that I’m really good at fundraising. Maybe I am. But I want it to be that I’m really good at building a great business.”

Why We Invested in GC AI’s First Round and Every Round Since

For decades, “legal tech” meant tools for law firms. GC AI flipped that narrative.

We met Cecilia and Bardia before GC AI even had a name. What drew us in wasn’t just their technical depth, it was their conviction and First Builder DNA. They weren’t chasing the AI wave; they were solving a real, lived problem. 

Companies everywhere are tightly managing the cost of outside counsel. Internally, in-house lawyers are pulled in many directions across platforms like Word, Google Suite, Slack, and more. They’re not just generating contracts. They’re fielding requests from the CEO, the marketing team, and the hiring team all at once. Cecilia Ziniti and Bardia Pourvakil, both ex-Replit, saw that the real legal bottleneck wasn’t in firms. It was inside companies. They built GC AI for the lawyers companies actually employ; the ones responsible for contracts, compliance, and everything else that determines how fast a business can move.

We knew that Cecilia’s lived lawyer experience and Bardia’s AI engineering background would allow them to hit product market fit very quickly if not right out of the gate, and we’re lucky it was the latter.

In just under a year, the team has gone from $1M to $10.8M+ in ARR with 1,750,000 customer messages sent across the platform. They’re proof that purpose-built technology, when crafted with empathy and specificity, compounds fast. Although we are Pre-seed investors, we have been lucky to invest in every round. At Series A, we doubled down from our core fund. At Series A and Series B, we were able to offer access directly to our LPs via an SPV. We thank Cecilia and Bardia for having us on board for the ride!

Meet GC AI Co-Founders, Cecilia Ziniti and Bardia Pourvaki

Looking Ahead

With this new funding, GC AI is accelerating product development, expanding enterprise capabilities, and deepening its investment in AI agents, integrations, and document precision.

For us, this isn’t just a milestone in our portfolio. It’s a signal of what’s possible when founders build from lived experience and back it with relentless velocity.

We couldn’t be prouder to stand behind GC AI as they help every company - from startups to the Fortune 500 - move faster, smarter, and with greater legal confidence.

Want to get GC AI to your legal teams? Mention “First Builders” in your email subject line and send it sales@gc.ai or cecilia@gc.ai. You’ll get a personal demo from Cecilia if you’re a friend of The Council! 

About Us: The Council Capital invests in high slope operators that are transforming our most essential industries like healthcare, legal, and manufacturing. We’re superpowered by our community of 200+ operator-angels and our alumni networks at Cruise, Snap, and Komodo Health. We also run the First Builders podcast, designed to inspire and attract the founders of tomorrow’s unicorns. 

Episode 1 is out now with Rohini Pandhi, Head of Expansion at Mercury. Rohini is a perfect example of a First Builder as someone who joined hyperscale companies like Square (now known as Block) and Mercury and created many processes and playbooks from scratch while also leading teams throughout critical growth periods. Rohini now also shares her expertise with other founders as a Partner at Transparent Collective, a non-profit that supports underrepresented founders raising early stage funding.

In this episode, Rohini dives into what it was like to join Square/Block right after IPO, keeping a beginner’s mindset as she’s moved along in her career, and has some hot takes on misconceptions in the startup land.

Subscribe and give it a listen on Youtube, Apple, or Spotify and let us know what you think with a rating and review!

Many of the best startup operators share something remarkable: an almost founder-like ability to create order from chaos. Rachel and I first noticed this pattern watching colleagues at Snap, Cruise, and Komodo Health build critical functions from scratch when processes were undefined and resources were scarce.

When I joined Cruise in 2018, the company had publicly committed to launching a robotaxi service the following year. As the deadline approached, it became clear that the technology was not ready. Timelines were wiped, projects were cancelled, and the company rallied around a handful of “Big Bets.” Nearly every team was reorganized to better support these efforts. In that first year, I had five different managers. It was quite hectic, and I saw many people opt out. But my scope grew every quarter with new challenges. I instituted a new sprint structure for an engineering team, reprioritized product roadmaps, built a pilot execution team, and formed a business unit. Despite Cruise's later challenges, the company saw tremendous growth in IP and talent during that time.

Many of my coworkers went on to take key roles at companies like Open AI and Replit. When they started leaving to launch their own companies, I began investing in them. Not because it was trendy, but because I'd seen firsthand how their operating experience translated into founding success. For example, Cecilia Ziniti went on to join Replit as their General Counsel and eventually founded GC AI. We made the first commitment into the company. In its first year of business, GC AI is now serving 450+ legal teams across 53 countries and closed a $10M Series A.

At The Council Capital, we have now invested in founders from Procore, Charlie Health, Uber, Airbnb, Flexport, Waymo, and more. And the pattern is clear - operators that can thrive in these periods of rapid transformation are able to hit the ground running faster as founders.

We call these First Builders – the early operators who join before success is obvious and help create it.

What Makes a First Builder?

The magic happens in what we call "high slope" environments – when companies are growing so fast they're constantly breaking and rebuilding their systems, processes, and sometimes their entire identity.

In these environments, First Builders develop five distinct advantages:

1. Extreme adaptability: They excel during organizational upheaval, whether it's pivots, restructures, or complete reinventions.

2. Comfort with ambiguity: They thrive without playbooks, creating structure where none exists.

3. Rapid ascent and impact: Given opportunity and chaos, they expand their scope dramatically.

4. Elite talent networks: They build relationships in pressure-cooker environments that become invaluable for future ventures.

5. Extreme versatility: They take on job functions outside of their primary expertise and learn fast to meet the needs of growing organizations.

High slope environments generate unicorn founders.

This pattern isn't just anecdotal. A 2023 study revealed that a striking number of unicorn founders had previously been early employees or founders at entrepreneurial companies during the startup to scaleup phase. The data validated what I'd seen firsthand: the skills learned in high-slope environments are crucial for founding success.

The New Tech Mafia is more distributed and physical than ever.

First Builders are not a new concept, but rather, the individualization of the Tech Mafia effect. Silicon Valley first saw this with the PayPal Mafia, whose early operators went on to found companies like SpaceX, YouTube, Yelp, Tesla, and LinkedIn. Having lived and worked in Silicon Valley for over a decade, I’ve personally seen this proliferation still happening decades later. We are now several generations in as early employees become top founders whose early employees become top founders.

But Today's First Builders are different – they're not just focused on consumer tech and horizontal SaaS. They're bringing tech-enabled innovation to industries that have historically been underserved.

The new generation is emerging from companies like Flexport, Anduril, SpaceX, One Medical, and Procore. As software moves beyond bits to atoms, these builders are transforming logistics, healthcare, construction, and transportation, what I called Essential Industries in my Fund I thesis essay, Software’s Third Act. Their operating experience in these complex industries gives them unique insight into which problems are worth solving.

Building The Council Capital

This evolution shaped The Council’s investment thesis: back the operators who've proven they can build from scratch in essential industries. We're committing millions over the next few years to companies led by First Builders and have a deep operator community to help us uncover more of these networks. Most recently, we invested in Rosarium Health. With over 10 years of experience at healthcare companies that have exited via acquisition and IPO like Bright Health, Evolent Health, and Truven Health, Rosarium’s founder Cameron Carter has First Builder DNA.

We're not just investing in companies – we're investing in a blueprint for how great operators become great founders. The skills that made Silicon Valley successful are becoming crucial everywhere as more industries undergo rapid transformation. We believe the next generation of transformative companies will be built by people who learned to thrive in times of chaos, growth, and greatness.

Sharing First Builder Stories

That's why we're launching the First Builders podcast. Starting tomorrow, you'll hear from the early employees of Square, OneMedical, Webflow, Replit, Cruise, and Substack about their journeys. These aren't just startup stories – they're practical lessons in how to build in high-growth environments. If you’re subscribed to this newsletter, you’ll get the first episode in your inbox tomorrow.

These conversations will explore:

• The moment they knew it was time to start something

• How operating experience shaped their founding journey

• Lessons learned building in high-growth environments

• What separates great builders from great founders

Whether you're an operator considering the founder leap or building something new inside an existing company, these stories offer a blueprint for creating order from chaos. Join us as we uncover how First Builders are shaping the next generation of essential industries.

In 2011, Marc Andreessen famously proclaimed, “Software is Eating The World.” The thesis was that internet startups were “poised to take over large swathes of the economy,” and make all the failed dreams of the dot-com era (Act I) finally come true.

Andreessen was at least half right. In the decade that followed (Act II), software companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google ascended to become the most valuable in the world. Billions of people did indeed buy smartphones, as predicted. And entire industries—news, entertainment, travel, communications, retail, productivity, finance, and more—were swallowed whole by software.

But software still hasn't eaten everything. The industries that form the foundation of the American economy—healthcare, logistics, construction, transportation, manufacturing, etc—are still waiting for the revolution. Just ask any consumer trying to find the right specialist at a hospital, or get insurance for a leaky roof. All across America, we are confronted with the type of antiquated, complex bureaucracies that we thought software would fix. The pandemic revealed how brittle our systems are. It’s now clear our foundations are crumbling.

But there’s good news: I and many others believe we’re on the precipice of a new revolution in software (Act III), in which startups will finally deliver on the dream of transforming the economy’s foundational industries. Identifying, backing, and supporting these companies is my life’s work, and inspires everything we do at The Council Fund.

Why now?

There are three main drivers:

1. Until recently, there weren’t many companies with Silicon Valley DNA and a track record of success in foundational industries, especially when compared to consumer software and horizontal SaaS. But success stories like the following have produced a new generation of operators-turned-founders with the know-how and drive to revolutionize foundational industries:

   • Flexport (tech-enabled logistics, $8B private valuation)

   • Procore (software for construction, $10.3B market cap)

   • ServiceTitan (software for the trades, $7.3B private valuation)

2. Previously, the operational complexity of running these businesses made them difficult to scale. Now, rapid advancements in AI allow businesses to analyze and act on complex operations data in real-time, as well as reduce legal and regulatory costs.

3. COVID exposed grave vulnerabilities in our essential industries as we faced nationwide shortages of not only PPE, but regular household items and medications. Healthcare workers experienced extreme burnout which still impacts staffing issues today. All of this spurred a wide recognition that change is needed for our society to thrive in the face of adversity. If one thing seems certain, it’s that the future will require more dynamic, flexible systems than the past.

Who will win?

It’s no secret that these foundational industries are intricate: success requires masterful navigation of gatekeepers, regulations, trade skills, and real-world operations. Founding teams need both A) deep exposure to their chosen vertical, and B) experience at high-growth startups or in tech-driven environments.

Throughout my own career before launching The Council Fund, I had the unique opportunity to see the worlds of tech and essential industries side by side, from Seed to Fortune 500. I spent my early career in operations for medical devices, insulin, and consumer electronics at Eli Lilly, Apple, and Snap. There I interfaced with manufacturing, supply chain, and logistics partners. I then focused on go-to-market for software products at Cruise and Atmos, where I interfaced with transportation and construction.

The contrast between the speed and quality of tools I had access to in the core tech industry and those available to my partners in essential industries was jarring. Multi-billion and trillion dollar industries at the core of our society were running on spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls. It was clear where the opportunities were.

Now, as a VC, I’ve been fortunate enough to invest in founders that have the same dual perspective:

• Nathan Mathews, Founder and CEO of Roofer.com, started roofing at 19 years old. It was there that he became aware of the danger of the job and fraud in the industry. Now his company uses drones and computer vision to help property owners diagnose roof damage and easily order a new roof online.

• Fifi Kara and Lailah Kara-Newton, Co-founders at Aster, bring their experiences together as a prior YC-backed founder and OBGYN to help doctors drive better pregnancy and maternal health outcomes for patients.

• Emma Guo, Co-founder and CEO of a stealth logistics company, was raised by a warehouse inventory manager. She became a software engineer and joined the ranks of Airbnb and Flexport. Now she is getting back to her roots and solving a big problem for 3rd party logistics providers (3PLs).

• Andy Rape, Co-founder of Leaficient, was raised on a farm. He also became a software engineer, focused on machine learning. Now he is building technology for farmers everywhere to improve crop yields and quality.

These founders are not only solving big problems and building big businesses. They are also assembling teams of entrepreneurial people around them who will play a great role in their success. Some of them will go on to start their own companies someday, with the perspective that they gain from this experience. Success begets success, and we will see flywheels of this founder archetype play out for decades.

Augmentation beats reinvention

Foundational industries won’t be rebuilt from scratch by technologists. Rather, these industries need to be augmented with products that are designed with their needs in mind.

Take WeWork, for example. It advertised itself as a tech company. But instead of investing in software designed to augment, the recently bankrupted firm tried to redesign core real estate operations themselves. This model only made sense with regular, massive influxes of capital—which slowed in recent years.

In contrast, One Medical’s $3.9 billion exit to Amazon is a great example of success. The hybrid in-person and telemedicine company did not attempt to redesign core medicine practices. Albeit a challenging model to pull off, the company was able to offset the cost of their in-person clinics with their high-margin software platform, economies of scale, and early understanding of health insurance and employer dynamics.

Procore’s $11 billion IPO is yet another success story, with a product that relies on software alone. With their platform, architects, general contractors, suppliers, and more can collaborate on complex projects and keep one source of truth on project documentation. This is way easier than trying to keep track of papers, emails, PDFs, and spreadsheets with multiple revisions. Staying dedicated to construction and solving a true painkiller has allowed them to scale quickly across the industry.

We prefer software-only solutions at The Council Fund for simplicity. Regardless of the approach, startups in these industries should augment core operations, rather than attempting to completely replace them.

Adoption can happen fast

There is a common misconception that leaders and workers in legacy industries have trouble adopting new software for problems on the job. But I’ve done countless customer reference calls when evaluating startups in these spaces and have found the opposite to be true. For example, when I talk with construction tech founders and their clientele — general contractors, steamfitters, trucking operators, and roofers — I hear over and over again that this notion is outdated. These folks rely on mobile devices like everyone else. They simply need products that meet them where they are – typically on the go and with text-based communications.

In all of these industries, people want to stay focused and have technology that’s working for them in the background. Complex multipoint solutions designed for all industries can be very inefficient and lead to unnecessary time spent behind the computer. General contractors want to be on the ground visiting job sites. Doctors want to be present with patients. Manufacturing leaders want to meet with their teams and walk the floor.

Industry-specific solutions take into account actual day-to-day needs and constraints. When they hit product market fit and become official painkillers, they can spread very quickly with low customer acquisition cost.

Silicon Valley DNA is key

Silicon Valley is as much an ethos as it is a location. There’s a quasi-religious nature to the rituals, manifestos, and special vocabulary. And it works. Early startup employees and young entrepreneurs flock to San Francisco for the chance to learn by osmosis. Longstanding programs like Y Combinator have shown repeated success in providing founders with the playbooks and networks they need to build generational companies.

And it doesn’t end there. When a company goes through a major liquidity event such as an IPO, as many as 15% of employees at companies like Airbnb become millionaires. Many will take those earnings and start new companies that have higher rates of success than the average founder.

But they tend to build in areas they understand best, hence the proliferation of consumer apps and horizontal SaaS we’ve seen over the years. Thankfully, this effect is beginning to ramp up in foundational industries. Consider Flexport, with an $8 billion valuation and expectations of a 2025 IPO. This is the type of success that positions their most entrepreneurial employees to be future founders in related industries. A staggering number of ex-Flexport founders pitched our fund last year, and we’ve invested in two to date. We will see more and more of this as more companies like Flexport mature.

Introducing: The Council Fund

Since 2019, I've been investing in startups serving foundational industries at the Pre-seed stage. I've observed that it can be challenging to get mainstream investors interested in unfamiliar spaces until there’s tangible traction. Additionally, many blue chip investors struggle to write small-enough checks for Pre-seed rounds. As a result, the cap table often consists of myself and a group of angels who recognize the potential in these industries.

Once these companies convert early design partners to customers and show repeated revenue and traction, they tend to take off quickly. This can happen as early as the Seed stage, but it becomes undeniable by the Series A stage. At that point, these deals become highly competitive because savvy investors recognize the massive market potential (ranging from $50 billion to $8 trillion) of the industries they serve. Pre-seed startups I've invested in have gone on to raise future funding from esteemed investors like Y Combinator, Lightspeed, Craft Ventures, and Union Square Ventures. I refer to the period between Pre-seed and Series A as the 'Valley of Subjectivity,' as investors are more inclined to support founders or company models they are familiar with.

As General Partner at The Council Fund and someone who has experience both in Silicon Valley and legacy industries, I have a unique perspective on the potential of these deals. Headquartered in San Francisco, with roots in the Midwest and founders in industrial hubs across the United States, our firm is designed from the ground up to be a bridge between century-old enterprises and the latest innovations in AI and software. We have a strong network of 90 Limited Partners and 160 operator-angels from companies like Figma, Square, Slack, and Lyft, who see the world differently and support our founders in areas like hiring, product strategy, and distribution.

While other investors shift their strategies to follow trends-of-the-moment, from creator economy to crypto to AI, The Council Fund has consistently invested in software for the essential economy. Now with recent financial success stories, advancements in AI, and widespread awareness of the work to be done, essential verticals are taking center stage. Founders of Act III, this is your moment and we can’t wait to partner with you.