3 min read • Dec 1, 2025

Today we’re announcing an $8M Series A to build the platform for Deal Engineering in private markets — led by HighlandX.

We’re also sharing our previously unannounced $4M Seed, led by Conversion Capital and Unusual Ventures, with angels including Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox), Diego Oppenheimer (Algorithmia/DataRobot), and Trent Hedge (Pylon).

Founded in 2022 by Ali Dastjerdi (CEO, ex-Insight Partners) and former AWS engineers Nathan Ondracek (CTO) and Sam Ilkka (COO), Raylu is an AI-native sourcing platform built for private-market investors. Venture, growth equity, private equity, and corporate development teams use Raylu to go from thesis to booked founder meetings in minutes instead of weeks.

Today, more than 45 private-investment funds representing over $500 billion in AUM use Raylu as their AI sourcing engine.

Why Deal Engineering

LLMs changed what’s possible, but reliable origination demands more than models. Deal Engineering is the discipline of turning non-deterministic AI into repeatable sourcing outcomes—the craft that moves investors from thesis → market map → qualified outreach → meetings with rigor and speed.

Traditional deal sourcing was far too manual. Analysts stitched together lists, Google searches, email hunting, and CRM updates by hand. Raylu was built to change that: instead of spreadsheets and browser tabs, investors use agents and workflows that instrument, evaluate, and integrate every step of origination.

Agents are easy to prototype and hard to operationalize; inputs drift, outcomes branch, and reliability suffers. Deal Engineering solves that with instrumentation, evaluation, and deep integration across the investor workflow.

We are building the platform for Deal Engineering becase sourcong deals involves more than just sourcing.

What’s in the Raylu platform

Raylu’s agents act as the sourcing infrastructure for private-market investors, handling the work that used to take weeks:

• From thesis to market map

  Describe a thesis in natural language and generate a comprehensive, real-time market map in minutes, with coverage of bootstrapped and emerging companies.

• 360° Company Intelligence

  Access concise, standardized profiles on every target: product details, GTM motion, hiring, customers, benchmarks, and competitive context—ready before the first call.

• Fund-Voice Outreach

  Identify verified decision-makers and launch targeted, multi-touch emails written in your firm’s voice—direct-to-CEO/founder outreach at scale.

• Two-Way CRM Sync

  Sync companies, interactions, and insights directly into existing CRMs such as DealCloud, Affinity, and Salesforce. Enrichment without workflow friction; notes and attachments become structured signal.

• Architecture & Trust

  Multi-model AI tuned for investor tasks, source-backed outputs, SOC 2, and zero AI data retention - enterprise-grade security and governance for sensitive deal flow.

Momentum

Across customers, hours collapse into minutes, coverage expands, and time-to-thesis shrinks - with cleaner CRM hygiene and higher reply rates. The outcome isn’t just more names; it’s more first conversations that matter.

Raylu will use the new capital to:

• Grow our engineering and product teams

• Strengthen our security, compliance, and enterprise capabilities

• Expand go-to-market as more funds modernize their sourcing workflows with AI

Our goal is simple: make Raylu the default sourcing engine for private-market investors.

About Raylu

Raylu is an AI-native sourcing platform built for private-market investors. Founded by former Insight Partners investor Ali Dastjerdi (CEO) and ex-AWS engineers Nathan Ondracek (CTO) and Sam Ilkka (COO), Raylu helps funds accelerate proprietary deal flow by using AI agents to find, research, and engage companies that match their investment theses.

Raylu is used by more than 45 private-investment funds representing over $500 billion in AUM. For more information, visit raylu.ai.

About HighlandX

HighlandX, based in Boston and Menlo Park, is a venture firm dedicated to partnering with founders who are redefining the frontier of their categories. With a focused, hands-on approach, the firm identifies, supports, and accelerates high-growth companies with outlier metrics and market momentum.

Join us

• See it live: [Book a demo link]

• We’re hiring: Help build the future of Deal Engineering.

Thank you to our investors, customers, and partners for pushing us to raise the bar. The space moves fast - so do we.