--- title: How 2 high school teens raised a $500K seed round for... description: Two 18-year-old high school graduates, Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot, raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding for their AI startup, APIGen.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-2-high-school-teens-raised-a-500k-seed-round-for-their-api-startup-yes-it-s-ai--cridvasln twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How 2 high school teens raised a $500K seed round for their API startup (yes, it’s AI) | daily.dev og:description: Two 18-year-old high school graduates, Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot, raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding for their AI startup, APIGen.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-2-high-school-teens-raised-a-500k-seed-round-for-their-api-startup-yes-it-s-ai--cridvasln og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/CRidVAsLN.png og:image:alt: How 2 high school teens raised a $500K seed round for their API startup (yes, it’s AI) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How 2 high school teens raised a $500K seed round for their API startup (yes, it’s AI) **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 5 min read · 40 upvotes · 6 comments ## Summary Two 18-year-old high school graduates, Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot, raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding for their AI startup, APIGen. The platform aims to create custom APIs from natural language prompts, catering to web apps, databases, and IoT devices. With strong community support and a keen interest from Varana Capital, the founders are currently building their minimum viable product and plan to release a beta version soon. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@creativewarlock** · 3 upvotes > With 500k funding comes a lot of responsibility. Hope they don't mess up. **@judevector** · 1 upvotes > It is very nice seeing this show that you have to try and maybe it might work out, also got some motivation and inspiration. I wish them well as they take up this responsibility. Having a VC funded this early comes with a lot of pressure and responsibility hope they succeed **@ck787** · 0 upvotes > Sounds like a more rudimentary [Poly API](https://polyapi.io/) **@pepperpark** · 0 upvotes > Interesting, I think useful, but not that special. And 500k is also not that much. --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup), [#venture-capital](https://daily.dev/tags/venture-capital), [#entrepreneurship](https://daily.dev/tags/entrepreneurship) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-2-high-school-teens-raised-a-500k-seed-round-for-their-api-startup-yes-it-s-ai--cridvasln) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How 2 high school teens raised a $500K seed round for their API startup (yes, it’s AI)","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-2-high-school-teens-raised-a-500k-seed-round-for-their-api-startup-yes-it-s-ai--cridvasln","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-2-high-school-teens-raised-a-500k-seed-round-for-their-api-startup-yes-it-s-ai--cridvasln"},"datePublished":"2024-06-23T15:00:47.991Z","dateModified":"2024-08-23T14:22:56.217Z","description":"Two 18-year-old high school graduates, Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot, raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding for their AI startup, APIGen....","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a7d3388fea5e5a291ba79a853cc50468?_a=AQAEuiZ","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a7d3388fea5e5a291ba79a853cc50468?_a=AQAEuiZ","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":6,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-2-high-school-teens-raised-a-500k-seed-round-for-their-api-startup-yes-it-s-ai--cridvasln","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":40},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":6}],"keywords":"ai,startup,venture-capital,entrepreneurship","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How 2 high school teens raised a $500K seed round for their API startup (yes, it’s AI)"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-2-high-school-teens-raised-a-500k-seed-round-for-their-api-startup-yes-it-s-ai--cridvasln","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"With 500k funding comes a lot of responsibility. Hope they don’t mess up.","datePublished":"2024-07-01T01:10:33.175Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/CRidVAsLN#c-ky60bVF0A","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Marcel Fitzner","url":"https://daily.dev/creativewarlock","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/4894323?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"It is very nice seeing this show that you have to try and maybe it might work out, also got some motivation and inspiration. I wish them well as they take up this responsibility. Having a VC funded this early comes with a lot of pressure and responsibility hope they succeed","datePublished":"2024-08-30T20:47:30.586Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/CRidVAsLN#c-JWvkWshVH","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jude Ndubuisi","url":"https://daily.dev/judevector","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--o64XhcS1--/f_auto/v1755785732/avatars/avatar_cV501Yh0AJJILSw4Y8yFm?_a=BAMClqZW0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Sounds like a more rudimentary Poly API","datePublished":"2024-09-09T22:37:24.481Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/CRidVAsLN#c-RWgEPtnw8","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"CK","url":"https://daily.dev/ck787","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/AAcHTtehkYcjBr88ZFhbRj_Sfbzmls6tuQF8zPcXJLLLVaWKXU4=s96-c"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Interesting, I think useful, but not that special. And 500k is also not that much.","datePublished":"2024-08-14T07:29:53.577Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/CRidVAsLN#c-SWndT2uBR","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Steve","url":"https://daily.dev/pepperpark","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--Xe70UrD7--/f_auto/v1753609893/avatars/avatar_nvpcL8Ghdsv3buTLDBLo2?_a=BAMClqZW0"}}]} ```