How a St. Pete ‘venture factory’ landed Cathie Wood, Ark Invest’s backing – Tampa Bay Business Journal

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Plato, a St. Petersburg-based venture factory and member of spARK Labs, raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Ark Invest to build AI-native software companies alongside industry experts. Founded by Dillon Auxier and JC Cornell, Plato identifies pain points across established industries—from transactional law to roofing—and builds AI-powered software to solve them, using automated checkpoints to narrow a hundred ideas down to the five or ten worth pursuing. The company expects to grow to seven employees by year-end and plans to eventually let outside investors buy directly into the startups it builds.

How a St. Pete ‘venture factory’ landed Cathie Wood, Ark Invest’s backing - Tampa Bay Business Journal

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