Build
We build faibuddy, our AI advisor for founders. Working on a live AI product grounds our view in product decisions, customer behaviour and the limits of current technology.
faibuddyAdvisory for founders building across the AI stack
When the next move is not obvious.
Work directly with Sonia or Cammie on the strategic decisions involved in building and growing a company, with added depth across product, technology, growth, regulation and risk.
We work across industries, especially where products, buying decisions, operations or regulation are complex.
Our thesis
AI is not a software category. It is a stack.
Energy, Chips, Infrastructure, Models, Applications. Push on one layer and the others move. The companies worth building will get built in all five, and at the seams between them.
The AI industrial stack
The technology changes by layer. The work of building a company repeats.
- Applications & Embodied AI
- Models
- Infrastructure
- Chips & Compute
- Energy
The company-building layer
Capability to Product to Market to Enduring business.
Disciplines: Product, Business model, Go to market, Partnerships, Regulation, Governance.
Freedom with AI participates in three ways: Build, Advise and Invest.
The technology changes by layer. The work of building a company repeats.
We are not designing chips or building power plants. We work on the part every company at every layer still has to get right: turning a technical breakthrough into a product, finding who will actually buy it, and building a business that holds up.
How we participate
Build, Advise and Invest
Advise
We advise founders on decisions that shape the company: which problem to pursue, what to build, who will buy, how to earn trust and where to focus.
How advisory worksInvest
We are beginning to back a small number of founders with our own capital when we have conviction and can contribute beyond the investment.
Building gives us direct operating feedback. Advising exposes us to different markets and company stages. Investing extends that perspective over a longer horizon.
Advisory and investing are separate decisions. Working with us does not require or promise an investment.
Advisors
Sonia Sarao
Strategic Advisor
Product, technology, growth and AI
Advises founders on building and growing companies, with an operator's perspective on product, market, technology and AI.
A product and engineering operator for over a decade, Sonia led products and teams through growth and acquisition. She now builds faibuddy, a live AI-native product for founders.
Sonia on LinkedIn
Cammie Clay
Strategic Advisor
Regulation, risk, governance and stakeholder strategy
Advises founders on building and growing companies, with added perspective on regulation, risk, governance and stakeholder decisions.
She has been on both sides of financial regulation: a regulator at the New York Stock Exchange and FINRA, then a compliance executive at RS Investments and First Republic Bank.
Cammie on LinkedInWhen founders bring us in
What worked before is no longer enough.
- The product or business direction is no longer obvious
- Early traction has exposed a positioning or go-to-market problem
- Entering a regulated market is changing product and operating decisions
- AI could change the product or cost structure, but the advantage is not yet clear
- A raise, acquisition or diligence process is approaching
- The company has outgrown the instincts that got it here
Selected advisory work
Recent problems we have worked through.
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An early-stage FinTech company was refining its problem, target market and business model while regulatory requirements were shaping what the product could become.
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An early-stage life sciences company needed to align its target market and business model with the compliance requirements affecting the product and operating model.
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A growth-stage services business needed a more focused path to growth. The work covered customer segmentation, verticalization, a new product line and the sales strategy around it.
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A growth-stage B2B software company needed its enterprise segments, product strategy and AI direction to reinforce the same business model.