We might die.
And what you can do to help us survive...
“Do not fund.”
Three words written on judge scorecards each time our company presented our latest business plan at the State of Delaware’s EDGE grant finals…
Despite earning our spot on the big stage, beating 120+ applicants…
Despite graduating Princeton University’s National Science Foundation I-Corps program…
Despite acceptance to NVIDIA’s Inception program.
Last fall, we made it to the STEM-track finals for the first time, confident we’d win a share of the $750,000 in funding available to develop our business; combining artificial intelligence with sustainable coffee manufacturing.
Despite showcasing a physical AI computer that we own, which we’ve built our own software on, and which powers our company, an anonymous judge’s notes erroneously claimed we provided “zero evidence of AI,” subsequently allocating $0 in funding, and writing “do not fund” as the final verdict.
In business, that’s a death sentence.
Despite other judges allocating capital on their scorecards, the “DNF” from just one judge was irredeemable.
After waiting a week for the results, assuming we’d win at least a portion of our total ask, we were notified we didn’t win a single dollar.
Knowing the judge was wrong, and that we’d convinced others we were in fact worthy of investment, we applied to the competition again in the spring of this year.
The second time around, we took a different approach;
Provide undeniable proof of AI.
Having spent days, nights, and weekends in the lab, this was something our company was absolutely prepared to do.
We submitted a 20-page project proposal outlining our plan to install our AI infrastructure into startups throughout the state; positioning everyone to maximize the capabilities of cutting-edge technologies in safe and ethical ways.
A few weeks later, we got the notification.
We advanced to the finals, again.
This time, with a much greater market opportunity and expanded technological sovereignty.
Despite the previous outcome, we continued to build and harden our infrastructure.
In fact, we built our own ChatGPT—it works without internet.
We conducted deep research not only on the judges but also our fellow finalists in this second pitch for state funding.
We included each of them in our pitch deck and script, illustrating our understanding of the industry landscape and unmet needs throughout the entrepreneurial community.
We did not see our fellow finalists as competitors, but collaborators.
Our invention is designed to help each of them win.
We delivered our presentation in the style of a speech, inspired in large part by both Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as Steve Jobs.
For show-and-tell, we played a video demonstration of our technology; a system designed to orchestrate and control artificial intelligence working autonomously on behalf of the business owner.
This is a critical element often missing from platforms today, as AI is incredibly powerful and must include guardrails before being deployed into high-risk areas.
Our system helps users curb their intelligence.
We spent 15 minutes articulating our vision.
Then 15 minutes conducting Q&A with the judges.
Then waited another week to hear the results…
“You didn’t win.”
Curious to know what the judges thought this time around, we booked our meeting to review the anonymized scorecards.
Several new instances of “do not fund.”
Gutted.
As a mentor always reminds me, success is not guaranteed, and failure is not final.
So we press forward, again without funding.
This week, we’ve launched our new venture into the world.
NGARi is an AI research lab and sovereign infrastructure provider dedicated to supporting communities with ethical AI and open science.
It’s not AI itself that creates problems, its the humans behind it.
In a world increasingly dominated by those in control of big tech, our mission is to put that same power in the hands of the people.
On our website, you can explore our work to understand what we’re building and why it matters.
What this means for us nearly 5 years in business is we’ve officially transformed into a technology company.
We’re now selling AI computers pre-installed with the software we’ve developed.
“Are you competing with ChatGPT?”
No.
We’re competing with OpenAI.
“Are you competing with Claude?”
No.
We’re competing with Anthropic.
“What makes you believe you can compete with leading labs fueled by billions of dollars in investment?”
We have the audacity.
We have the vision.
We have the talent.
I started building NGARi in my mom’s garage, tinkering on NVIDIA developer kits.
One year later, we’re building a full-out foundation AI lab dedicated to advancing sovereign AI infrastructure through open science.
In this video, you’ll see our first product—NGARi Chat—a local alternative to cloud chatbots.
Processing data locally (in your office or on your desk) guarantees 100% security, as language models can analyze and generate content without an internet connection.
There are no external API calls or dependencies risking data leakage.
We’ve fine-tuned several open source models to compete on speed.
When running locally, NGARi Chat is faster than Google, and you can test it for free online.
Next, we’re developing sovereign models.
NGARi is more than a software company, we’ve optimized our sovereign stack to run on NVIDIA GPU, and we package the entire bundle for startups, small businesses, and institutions.
We’re a sovereign infrastructure provider on a mission to give global communities the freedom to innovate.
You may not remember the day ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini launched, but you can now say you witnessed NGARi enter the arena.
We’re hyper-focused on securing our first customers this week, so if you’re interested in partnering with us to unlock advanced AI capabilities for your company, drop me a line.
Let’s go further, together.