First Check

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  User Dashboard

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  Hero Section

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  Connections

Inspiration

The venture capital world is often criticized for being a "who-you-know" ecosystem. For many solo founders, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds or non-traditional paths—the barrier to entry isn't just a lack of capital; it is a massive information and network gap. We watched brilliant entrepreneurs struggle to navigate the fundraising maze while others used private rolodexes to skip the line. We were inspired to build the "network" directly into the software, creating an agentic consultant that gives any founder the same strategic edge typically reserved for the elite.

What it does

First Check is an agentic fundraising copilot that automates the heavy lifting of a capital raise through a four-stage pipeline:

• The Profiler: Conducts a deep-dive interview to build a structured "Founder Card"—the single source of truth for the startup's data.
• The Connector: Uses graph traversal logic to identify the shortest "warm paths" to investors who actually back founders in your specific niche, ghostwriting outreach that feels human and informed.
• The PMF Agent: Acts as an AI co-founder, poking holes in the go-to-market strategy and sharpening the business model before a real investor sees it.
• The Prep Coach: Scrapes an investor's public essays, podcasts, and threads to run calibrated mock interviews, ensuring the founder is ready for the specific questions that particular VC is known to ask.

How we built it

We prioritized a high-end, high-conviction aesthetic to match the ambition of a "Unicorn" trajectory.

• Frontend: Built with Next.js 16 (App Router) and Tailwind CSS v4. We used Framer Motion to create sophisticated scroll-linked animations and "word-pull-up" headers that give the site a premium, "Day 1" feel.
• Intelligence: The agentic logic is powered by GPT-4o. We designed specific system prompts to ensure each agent has a distinct objective, moving away from generic chat interfaces toward a structured, step-by-step pipeline.
• Design: We utilized shadcn/ui and a "glassmorphic" bento-grid layout to visualize the four-agent process clearly.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest hurdles was Explainability. We didn't want the AI to just "spit out" an email or a critique; we wanted the founder to understand why the AI made those choices. We spent significant time designing a sidebar interface for the Connector that breaks down the framing choices for every outreach draft. Technically, syncing Framer Motion’s useScroll transforms with the video background while maintaining 60fps performance required several iterations of performance profiling.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are incredibly proud of the Connector’s graph traversal logic. Moving beyond simple "investor lists" to actually mapping out how a founder can navigate toward a target VC using data is a game-changer. We also succeeded in creating a UI that feels like a professional tool rather than a toy, using a warm #E8E6D4 palette that stands out in a sea of generic "SaaS Blue" landing pages.

What we learned

We learned that agentic workflows are far more powerful for specialized tasks like fundraising than open-ended chat windows. By constraining the AI to specific roles (like the PMF Agent or Prep Coach), we could get much higher-quality, more actionable outputs. We also realized that for underrepresented founders, the most valuable thing an AI can provide is not just "content generation," but contextual confidence.

What's next for First Check

The landing page is just the beginning. Our next steps include:

• Live Data Integration: Connecting to real-time venture databases to provide live "warm path" mapping.
• Auth & Persistence: Implementing Clerk or Supabase so founders can save their "Founder Cards" and track their raise progress.
• Agent Workspaces: Building the actual interactive UIs for the four agents so founders can start their mock interviews and outreach directly within the platform.

Built With

• next.js
• tavily