# Ali Dastjerdi

> Ali Dastjerdi is the co-founder and CEO of Raylu, a New York AI company that turns an investor's thesis into booked founder meetings in minutes instead of weeks. A Harvard machine-learning student turned Insight Partners investor, he started Raylu in 2022 with his freshman-year roommate and a friend they met at AWS. The trio raised a $4M seed and an $8M Series A, and now sell their 'Deal Engineering' platform to 45-plus funds managing over $500 billion. They keep one unopened beer in the office fridge, to be drunk only the day the company dies.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Raylu
- **Organizations:** Raylu, Insight Partners, Harvard Student Agencies, Harvard University
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Studied computer science, statistics and machine learning, Harvard University
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Raylu, an AI-native deal sourcing platform for private markets., Raised $12M total ($4M seed led by Conversion Capital and Unusual Ventures; $8M Series A led by HighlandX)., Signed 45+ private-investment funds representing over $500 billion in assets under management.

## Career timeline

- **2015** — Enters Harvard as a freshman; rooms with future co-founder Nathan Ondracek.
- **2018** — Serves as President of Harvard Student Agencies, the largest student-run business in the world.
- **2019** — Joins Insight Partners as an investor, backing data, ML-tooling, security, fintech and vertical SaaS companies including Weights & Biases, Anjuna and ZenGo.
- **2022** — Leaves Insight Partners and co-founds Raylu with Nathan Ondracek and Sam Ilkka in New York.
- **2025-12** — Announces an $8M Series A led by HighlandX (plus a previously unannounced $4M seed), totaling $12M raised.
- **2026** — Publishes essays on financial AI and writes that 45+ funds with $500B+ in AUM now use Raylu.

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Raylu, an AI-native deal sourcing platform for private markets.
- Raised $12M total ($4M seed led by Conversion Capital and Unusual Ventures; $8M Series A led by HighlandX).
- Signed 45+ private-investment funds representing over $500 billion in assets under management.
- Former Insight Partners investor on deals including Weights & Biases, Anjuna and ZenGo.
- Served as President of Harvard Student Agencies, the largest student-run business globally.

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Publishes 'What Claude Cowork Means for Private Markets,' arguing where AI co-working leaves alpha for sourcing tools like Raylu.
- **2026-02** — Publishes 'The Real Cost of Hallucination in Financial AI.'
- **2025-12** — Announces Raylu's $8M Series A led by HighlandX, bringing total funding to $12M.

## Links

- Website: https://raylu.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-dastjerdi
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/alidastjerdi

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/ali-dastjerdi
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-04