B2C · AI companion startup

How Portola grows

1 tactic and 2 figures from 1 interview.

About Portola

What it is: Three-founder startup building AI companion experiences; maker of Tolan.
Team: Three co-founders (Ajay Mehta, Quinton Farmer, Evan Goldschmidt); about nine people total
Funding: pre-seedseed

As described in the interviews, not independently verified.

Portola's tactic

Portola · B2C · AI companion startup

Raise a small pre-seed first, then more from the same investor after launch

$10M seed in total

Raised a pre-seed from a known investor (Lachy Groom, ex-Stripe solo GP) on the three co-founders and a general direction while prototyping. After the soft launch showed traction, the same lead investor doubled down, making a $10M seed in total.

Workedfinancing

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2025-04-02

Portola by the numbers

Metric	Value	Context	Said in
funding raised	USD 10M	Seed round including the earlier pre-seed plus the lead investor's follow-on	Sub Club by RevenueCat 2025-04-02 8:49
team size	9 people		Sub Club by RevenueCat 2025-04-02 44:34

Topics

Bootstrapping vs raising money1

Interviews

Fueling Growth with AI and Viral Product Features — Ajay Mehta, Portola · Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2025-04-02