Josh Penner for Inquisio.AI
Building the AI-Powered Solution to Solve Government’s Information Problem
We Help the Public Access Government Data in Moments
Hello Friends and Supporters!
We did it! Techstars Seattle Accelerator '23 is in the books - and what a book it was!
The highlights of the last week were Investor Day, where we got to directly meet with dozens of investors, and Demo Day where we debuted our company pitch as well as met hundreds of people wanting to see demoes and discuss our progress.
You can check out our pitch here: 
Following the programming of Demo Day, the reviews were fantastic.
Here are my favorite Inquisio-related quotes from various articles and social media posts:
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"Making it as elegant to ask local gov a question online as it is engaging literally any e-commerce platform."
~Alex Lofton, co-founder, Landed
"I'm also a huge fan of … Inquisio.AI which is helping citizens navigate government. I continue to be bullish on the #govtech space and haven't seen anything along the lines of what [Inquisio] has built to transform citizen-government interactions."
~Brian Glaister, Head of Product and GM of Justice @ Axon
"I came away impressed with the quality of each company and founder, but these five stood out to me… Inquisio wants to make it easier and faster for the public to access government data."
GeekWire, 1/18/2024
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As you can see, what a night! And again, what a program! Over the last three months we grew monumentally as a company. Now, however, is not the time to let off the gas. Bullet point updates:
- We're in the finals for continuing the accelerator process at the Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Accelerator Program. Which will use to continue to expand our exposure to ideas as well as top of the market talent.
- Our city pilots are kicking off this week which help us perfect the platforming of our tech and get us ever closer to repeatable transactions.
- We're kicking off our pre-seed round.
I should have led with that last point, right?
We are actively fundraising now for our pre-seed round.
Our target is $1m and with that we will achieve $1.5 ARR within 24 months.
To achieve the ARR goals we will continue to add customer focused features to our platform, Lens (engineering and product team). And we will continue to distill our sales motion and onboarding motions so that they require far less direct engagement than they do today (sales, marketing, customer support).
Our aim: the right product, demanded by the market + the right team to deliver the product and scale to meet demand. That's what we're building to.
Much more to follow on this! For now, if you're open to discussing our fundraise further, please, let's Talk: https://calendly.com/inquisio/talk
~Josh
CEO, Inquisio.AI
Beta Testing/Dev Pilot in Hand: 6 cities
Excerpt:
Inquisio, Latin for Investigation
Last week, I got to pitch Inquisio to dozens of investors. As I sat down at our lunch table halfway through the event, I got some advice from a seasoned investor and entrepreneur.
Your tagline was boring; it needs more punch.
After 12 weeks of the Techstars life and, frankly, 15 months of persistently proving and refining our product thesis every day, I ate the bitter feedback with internalized frustration.
But that’s the process. You have to like the taste of your own blood if you want to change the world, right? It was time to flex the muscles so often worked recently and dig to understand the why of the hard advice. That little bit of curiosity on my end opened a full thirty-minute discussion that ranged from his entrepreneurial journey to his mission now as an investor.
Half an hour later, I found myself... click here to read the rest
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Lastly, if you're a jurisdiction in WA state, don't miss this grant opportunity:
$30,000: Grant $ available to WA state jurisdictions that want to implement a technological solution to some aspect of their information access challenge (records processes). (https://www.sos.wa.gov/archives/RecordsManagement/Local-Records-Grant-Program.aspx)