Page 66 of Semantics

“Uh… No. It’s not Stella. It’s Asset Capital.”

“Asset Capital?” Enya asked and sat down in her chair. “Who’s that?”

“Do you remember when we were trying to get Series A funding a while ago? They were one of the VCs I went to. They didn’t want us.”

“Then, why are they emailing you now? Do we somehow owe them money?” Arlowe asked.

“No. We had one meeting with them maybe seven years ago now. They were last on my list of companies I thought might be interested in investing. Not because there’s something wrong with them, but because they were the best VC firm who was investing in companies around here. I thought they’d be too big for us. The meeting went well, but they decided to invest in some baby software tech thing because it had a much bigger market.”

“Yeah, people keep procreating for some reason,” Sarai said.

“They want a meeting,” Violet shared. “Now. Well, not now like right now, but soon, as in present day. I would have thought they’d lost my number, or rather, my email address.”

“What does their email say? And why do they want the meeting now?” Sarai asked.

“Nothing specific. It just says that they’ve been following the company, and they’re interested in talking now if we’re looking for a new investor.”

“Which we are,” Enya said. “This is amazing. Just out of the blue like that? Sarai, your marketing must be working.”

“I mean, we had some really good click-through rates on the targeted ads I ran a few weeks ago, but nothing major. This is good news, though, right, Vi?”

“It’s great news if it works out, but I need to update the investor deck. I haven’t done any work on that in a minute, and we’ve added a few features since then.”

“Plus, we’ve got Cerebral now. That’ll help. Makes us look like a grown-up company to have software like that. I can help you add that in if you want,” Arlowe offered. “When do they want to meet?”

“It’s up to me,” Violet said. “They didn’t put a date or anything in here.” She reread the email again. “It’s the same person we dealt with before. I remember their name because it was interesting.”

“What’s their name?” Arlowe asked.

“Antoinette Flow, but she goes by Ant.”

“I’m sorry. What?” Sarai laughed.

Arlowe joined in. Then, Enya laughed along with them. Finally, Violet had to join in.

“I know, right? I feel so bad for her,” Violet said.

“Could you imagine growing up with that name?” Arlowe asked. “Ant Flow? As in Aunt Flow? As in–”

“Yeah, Arlowe. We’re all there already,” Sarai said, still laughing.

“Anyway, it’s her email signature,” Violet continued. “And she was the one who said no to us the first time. I wonder what’s changed. One good, targeted ad campaign wouldn’t be enough to get them to message me on their own.”

“I don’t imagine a lot of VCs reach out to companies directly. They wait for us to do that,” Enya said.

“I know. But I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth here. We need the money. Even if it’s to keep us solvent for the next year or two in order to get the next versions of the app out, increase our market share, get the game functioning, make prototypes for the hardware, and we have to–”

“You really think we can do all that with only four of us within a year or two? We’re struggling to keep the app up and running as is. It’s just me here. I’m coding the new features while squashing bugs. I’m also de facto in charge of customer support. Now, I’m implementing Cerebral, too. I can’t move much faster, and I can’t make hardware, Vi. We’ll have to hire someone, and probably a bunch of someones. You’ve seen how long it’s taken other companies that are way bigger than ours to build working hardware, and sometimes, even if it works great, it still doesn’t sell.”

“Yes, but their hardware is being built for the masses and to do multiple things. Ours is incredibly targeted and–”

“I know. I want it, too,” Arlowe said. “I just don’t know that one or two years is long enough. We need probably three minimum to get a prototype working, and maybe five to ten for the whole thing to work right, have all the right vendors, and–”

“Arlowe, this is really good information for that investor deck. So, let’s add it all in there and see what they’re willing to give. If anything, if we can win them over, we might be able to get other investors to chip in, if they can’t give us everything we ask for, just by using their name. That’s not something we’ve had before, the name of a reputable VC firm.”

“She’s right,” Enya said. “Even if they could only keep us going for a couple of years, someone else might want to help us out and get us beyond that once they hear that we’re working with Asset.”

“Let’s get to work on the deck,” Violet said.