Annie Liao on raising $1.8M for her unique artificial intelligence start-up at 23-years-old

This story is part of a content partnership between Blackbird and Missing Perspectives, High Agency Women: profiles and stories that shine a light on what women are building, and how they're building it. You can find the full series at Missing Perspectives, and if you're a founder looking for investment in your startup, we'd love to hear from you here.

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Missing Perspectives founder Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks caught up with Annie at this incredible point in her remarkable life journey. 

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To say that Annie Liao is a force to be reckoned with is an understatement. 

The 23-year-old recently wrapped up a (casual) $1.8 million capital raise for her groundbreaking start-up, Build Club. Their mission? To empower everyone to build their dreams into a reality. 

Annie logs into our Zoom call from San Francisco (“the weather is terrible at the moment,” she tells me). But she’s not in SF for holiday or to rest - she’s there for Build Club and to meet with AI education providers as she starts to scale her business, which is now one of the largest AI-builder communities in the world. 

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Annie has had an unconventional path into the start-up world - but looking back, it’s easy to see how the dots all line up. Annie started out at Westpac fresh out of university - where she learned how to code [via Python, she says] and do some work in AI - so launching Build Club has felt “full circle.”

“I worked hard at Westpac then decided that I wasn’t going to be a good data scientist - and then moved to Boston Consulting Group,” she tells Missing Perspectives. “Near the end of my career at BCG, I knew that I wanted to go into startups. There was a role at a VC fund [at Aura Ventures] that opened up” - and it seemed like the perfect fit. 

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It was during that time working as an Investment Associate (focusing on scouting opportunities, and the execution of due diligence and investment opportunities) at Aura Ventures that Annie began working on the first version of Build Club - initially starting out as a community platform for AI founders who would catch up to discuss all things AI and building startups in the space. “Build Club began with a group of friends tackling AI projects on weekends. I was working in VC at the time and naturally this became founder focused. It was an alternative to hanging out in the local Starbucks,” Annie wrote in a founder’s note on LinkedIn. 

From there, the company began to snowball organically, into over 20 cities around the world. The company experimented with running an accelerator, then considered becoming a venture fund themselves. Annie candidly reflects that the team found the first iteration of Build Club hard to scale - ultimately deciding to build an e-learning platform, which would involve taking on outside investment.

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Raising capital was daunting, but a challenge that Annie was ready to take on. “Getting the money was actually more stressful than I thought it would be, particularly raising as a solo founder and having to build a team, and hire a Chief Technology Officer [CTO],” she says. “It’s easier now that I have a CTO that I can trust. I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to build what we want to do and not have to worry about food, etcetera,” she laughs. 

In terms of advice for young women thinking about pitching to venture capitalists, Annie has one message: back yourself. “When you seem nervous people know you're nervous,” she says. “Rejection is normal - we were rejected by my previous employer [when pitching]. You just need one person to back you and then that can change your trajectory. Be as resilient as possible. Surrounding yourself with people who back you.”

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Annie practices what she preaches - having leaned on leading female mentors here in Australia. She tells me the experience of pitching to VC firms [including Blackbird, the partner for this content series] was made easier by the support of some leading women in the industry here in Australia. 

Annie credits mentors including Harken COO and ex-WhatsApp Julia Wells (“Even though I wasn’t in startups when we met, she backed me - and encouraged me to do it fulltime,” she says) and Co Ventures’ Maxine Minter. “Our raise was pretty interesting, as people believed in me before I had the conviction to go full time. I’d never really pictured myself as a VC startup founder,” says Annie. “When we founded Build Club, it wasn’t to go [down the] VC route.”

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So, you raise $1.8M. What happens next? And how do you keep the strong sense of community that has defined Build Club, and been the backbone of its success? 

"Off the back of their raise, Build Club will focus on building an e-learning platform for designers, engineers, and young professionals to learn about AI, connect with like-minded learners, and even get paid for building and selling AI products,” she says. “Our thesis is that if everyone is more educated about AI, then they can build it themselves.”

“Not much is changing about the community - we’re bringing on an operations associate who’ll spearhead lots of community. AI is fast-moving so building a community makes people less scared about it.” What makes Build Club unique is that all the hires have been through the Build Club community (“it’s top talent who are about AI,” Annie says), and so far they have a CTO, operations associate, and product designer. 

Annie also shares that she’s planning to relocate permanently - so it’s a really exciting time for both Annie and the company. “From a lifestyle perspective, I really like the lifestyle of SF [San Francisco]. I want to surround myself with people who are working hard,” she says. 

“From a partnerships perspective, SF is seen as the heart of AI, with a lot of the big companies headquartered here. It’s amazing, the serendipity you can run into. We were working from a  coworking space, and a company there with a data analyst approached us and wanted to do a certification for their product and they heard we were doing it.”

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In terms of moving forward into 2025, Annie is most excited about building something that AI builders want. 

Build Club’s ultimate goal? To become the training campus for 1 million AI builders by 2026. It’s audacious, but after speaking with Annie, I have a feeling that this will happen.