I built a two-sided platform for the VC ecosystem. Here's what I learned.
I've spent the last year building Nire -- a platform that does two things:
Gives founders an AI-powered investability assessment scored across eight investor dimensions, so they know exactly where they stand before they pitch
Gives VC fund managers a portfolio management dashboard to track ARR, runway, burn, and risk across every fund and company
The two sides connect. Founders who complete the assessment enter a scored deal flow pipeline visible to fund managers. The deals reaching investors have already been filtered for quality.
Why I built it
Most founders walk into pitch meetings blind. They get passed on with no real feedback and no idea what to fix. On the investor side, fund managers are managing portfolios in spreadsheets, chasing quarterly updates by email, and spending hours on admin that should be automated.
The information gap between founders and investors is unnecessary. The tools to close it just didn't exist in one place.
Where we are
The platform is built and running. AI scoring is live. The waitlist is open at nirehq.com. I'm working towards a soft launch with a small group of trusted founders and fund managers.
The name
Nire is my daughter Erin's name spelled backwards. The pink in the brand is her favourite colour. I wanted to build something that carried a personal reason to exist.
Happy to answer any questions about the build, the scoring methodology, or the VC ecosystem problem we're solving.
Congrats on the launch, James! Nire looks like an incredibly solid execution for a massive problem. Solving the communication asymmetry between VCs and early-stage runway tracking is a brutal engineering challenge.
I’m currently building out the infrastructure for HODLTrack (a cross-asset portfolio risk tracker), and I completely resonate with building dashboards centered around real-time downside risk thresholds rather than just simple stat logs.
Balancing a dual-sided pipeline like this is heavy lifting. How are you handling data ingestion for the fund manager dashboards—are you relying on manual founder inputs for ARR/runway metrics, or are you building API integrations into accounting stacks? Will definitely be following your journey here.
Thanks, really appreciate that.
On data ingestion: manual input and CSV upload are in place for soft launch, but API integrations are coming very soon after. Xero and QuickBooks are the obvious first targets for the UK market. The plan was always to get the core workflow validated with real users first before layering in the integrations, but that gap is going to be short.
Good luck with HODLTrack, the downside risk threshold framing is a much more honest way to look at portfolio health than simple stat logs. Happy to compare notes as both products develop.
Thanks, James! Really appreciate you checking out HODLTrack. The downside risk framing felt necessary because simple stat logs just don't tell the full story when markets get volatile—much like how traditional trade journals ignore execution psychology.
Your soft-launch approach is spot on. Validating the core workflow with manual/CSV inputs before fighting with accounting APIs is definitely the right move to save your sanity. Xero and QuickBooks integrations are going to be massive anchors for the UK market once you roll them out.
Definitely down to compare notes as we both scale up. Let's stay in touch!
Agreed on all counts. The accounting API integrations are coming sooner rather than later but getting the workflow right first was the priority. Good luck with the HODLTrack build, would be good to stay in touch as both products develop. Feel free to reach out directly.
Interesting build.
The thing I'd be careful with is that some decisions look operational on the surface when they're actually much more foundational.
Those are the kinds of decisions that can quietly shape everything that follows, even when the product itself is working.
I wouldn't make that call casually in a thread.
That is a fair challenge. If you are referring to the scoring methodology, you are right that it is more foundational than it appears. How we evaluate founder readiness shapes the quality of the deal flow on the fund manager side, which shapes the value of the whole platform. We have put a lot of thought into making it defensible, multi-dimensional and resistant to gaming, but it is something we will keep stress-testing with real users. Happy to go deeper on that if it is what you had in mind.
Possibly.
The reason I stopped short is that I don't think the interesting part is the scoring methodology itself.
I think it's the decision sitting underneath it.
I'd be careful unpacking that casually in a thread.
If you're curious, drop your email and I'll put together the tighter version.
Happy to discuss openly if you have something specific in mind. What is the decision you are referring to?
Possibly, but that's exactly why I stopped short.
I don't think the useful part is the decision itself.
I think it's why that decision matters and what follows from it.
That's difficult to do properly in a thread without oversimplifying it.
If you're curious, drop your email and I'll send over the tighter version.