We co-build AI-first B2B
companies to $10M ARR - faster.
We help founders win the valley of death.
Co-building across every front that matters right from Product to GTM to Fundraising - until you reach to $10M ARR sustainably.
Hands-on, in the trenches, building alongside founders. Co-building is our primary value-add.
who just focus on high-level guidance, cohorts, and advisory-led support.
We co-build only with 4-5
startups a year with deep involvement.
They onboard 100+ companies in a year with limited, surface-level involvement.
We build capital-efficient businesses to $10M ARR -profitable, and founder-controlled.
They follow a power-law model: chasing unicorns by design - not the right fit for every founder.
We’re a focused venture studio, doubling down where we have deep expertise.
They invest across the entire spectrum, optimizing for breadth rather than depth.
We co-execute with founders across the most critical functions from day one.
They operate primarily at the advisory and guidance level across portfolio companies.
On a mission to co-build 100 Companies in lifetime.
We cap intake at 4–5 companies a year and expand only after existing PortCos are scaled. We’re more of quality than quantity.
How we help our Portfolio Companies?
First things first. We help you solidify your ICP. Through direct conversations with buyers across your market, we uncover what to build, how to sell, and where higher ACV truly exists.
40+ in-person ICP research meetings conducted alongside the Photon Legal founder.
₹50K→ $100K ACV ICP change drove the ACV jump - fewer customers, larger deal sizes.
We help you translate ICP clarity into sharp customer positioning. That positioning becomes the foundation for decks, website copy, sales reach-outs, etc.
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Most founders struggle to build a repeatable demand engine. We specialise ACE in designing and executing GTM motions that scale beyond founder-led sales.
~2→ 50 MQLs/mo
built repeatable ABM motion to get 50 MQLs, all with a potential of being $100K ACV customers
$4M
pipeline generated over a course of 15 months from homogenous $100K ACV customers.
~2→ 50 MQLs/mo
built repeatable ABM motion to get 50 MQLs, all with a potential of being $100K ACV customers
$4M
pipeline generated over a course of 15 months from homogenous $100K ACV customers.
~2→ 50 MQLs/mo
built repeatable ABM motion to get 50 MQLs, all with a potential of being $100K ACV customers
$4M
pipeline generated over a course of 15 months from homogenous $100K ACV customers.
We’re co-building Outcome-as-a-Service companies - delivery-led, product-powered. Companies own outcomes while Product creates leverage to reach 80% gross and 20% net margins.
Traditional Agency
Scales by hiring more people -output grows linearly with headcount. Operations stay heavy, leaving limited leverage and ~5-10% net margins.
AI-First Agency
AI automates a large chunk of work, including ops and delivery, creating real operating leverage. Fewer people, better output - enabling ~20% net margins.
We built Photon Pulse - an AI-powered operating system for patent programs: submit ideas, score them, and manage execution end-to-end. Built for $500M+ revenue companies to track their patent pipeline, see what matters, and take action - all in one place.
5+
clients added within 30 days of launch.
$500K
revenue influenced.
30+
patent ideas submissions in a month.
Fundraising isn’t just raising money - it’s raising at the right time, from the right people. We help founders plan the round and close it faster through sharp narrative + warm intros.
Strategy
Warm Intros
We help PortCos build the operational foundation required to scale. Customer Success, Finance, and Legal - set up early, so growth doesn’t break later.
CS
Finance
Legal
Hiring is the highest-leverage work founders do. We help PortCos design the org, hire the right leaders, and retain top talent as they scale.
Strategy
Hiring
People Ops
We’re backed by a diverse ecosystem of investors across regions, industries, and expertise. The network includes founders, top 1%tile operators, and top-tier investors with deep experience across product, engineering, AI, service, and operations.
40
Angel Investors
15+
Referrals made for PortCos.
100+
hours spent with PortCos.
Here’s how we helped Photon Legal to achieve 300% Growth in just 18 months.
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Photon Legal’s Testimonial
Frequently Asked Questions
Clear answers on fit, focus, and what co-building actually means.
Traditional agencies have always been hard to scale.
Low margins, manual execution, and growth tied directly to headcount.
AI changes that equation.
For the first time, services can be delivered with software-like leverage — where the work is powered by AI, not people.
Instead of selling tools to help customers do the work, companies can use AI internally to deliver the outcome end-to-end — and charge accordingly.
Think:
- a design firm producing finished creative before a contract is signed
- an ad agency generating studio-quality video without a physical shoot
- a legal firm drafting documents in minutes, not weeks
These businesses won’t look like agencies.
They’ll look like software companies — with software margins.
That’s the future we’re building toward:
AI-native, Outcome-as-a-Service companies that scale to $10M ARR sustainably.
If you’re building in this direction, we’d love to talk.
We work with only 4–5 companies a year - because we go deep, and only onboard new PortCos once we have scaled the existing ones
In 2026, we’re building a foundational layer of AI-native fractional leadership companies, each designed to scale to $10M+ ARR with software-like margins.
These include:
- Fractional CMO – AI-powered demand generation and growth execution
- Fractional CRO – Revenue operations and sales infrastructure at scale
- Fractional CPO – Product strategy and AI-driven product development
- Fractional CHRO – Talent, hiring systems, and org design powered by automation
- Fractional CFO – Finance, compliance, and capital efficiency with AI leverage
Each of these verticals sits in a large, fragmented market where outcomes are expensive, manual, and inefficient today.
AI changes that.
What once required large teams and decades to scale can now be built in 5–7 years with:
- 80%+ gross margins
- 20%+ net margins
- Durable recurring revenue
These companies are designed not just to scale independently - but to strengthen the Shifu ecosystem by serving portfolio companies from day one.
We partner exclusively with B2B, AI-native companies.
We understand complex sales cycles, higher ACVs, and enterprise buying behavior deeply.
We look for founders who:
- Are building AI systems internally and externally
- Want to sell globally - from India, to the world
- Are focused full-time on their company
- Have early revenue traction (typically $25K–$100K in revenue)
- Are ambitious about building toward $10M ARR and beyond
Yes - in most cases, we invest alongside co-building.
Shifu typically leads the first round and helps founders close it with the right angels and early believers.
We also have an ecosystem of **100+ angel investors** who get early access to the companies we co-build.
That said - capital is not the primary value add.
Founders shouldn’t work with Shifu just for fundraising.
If you’re only looking for a check, a traditional VC is likely a better fit.
Shifu is for founders who want a deeply embedded partner to help scale to $10M ARR faster - through execution, focus, and real company-building.
We work with only 4–5 companies a year, so selection is highly intentional.
Most of the founders we partner with come through referrals - from operators, angels, or other founders in our ecosystem.
Because this is a high-conviction bet on both sides, we typically start with:
1. Deep founder conversations
2. A short working pilot for 3 months
3. Alignment on ambition, incentives, and long-term vision
If there’s mutual conviction, we move forward.
We don’t run cohorts. We don’t operate on batches or demo days.
We onboard companies at any time of the year - so feel free to reach out to us if you’re building something interesting.
