building on [[twosigma_Probabilistic Programming for Equitable Startup Capitalization]] using [https://claude.ai/chat/77915984-eaab-4f40-8cf0-cf51d9812f28](https://claude.ai/chat/77915984-eaab-4f40-8cf0-cf51d9812f28) ### product ##### 1. What is the name of your team/startup/idea? CIVA (Conversational Inference for equity Valuation Agreement) ##### 2. 🧭💜Inferring need: Describe the need, problem or opportunity your proposal is addressing? Our proposal addresses critical challenges in startup funding through Wei's case, an MIT autonomous vehicle expert turned founder. Her AI-powered fleet management technology promises 40% cost reduction in truck operations, but she faces three significant fundraising obstacles. First, there's a fundamental mismatch between standard funding terms (6-8M for 20-25% equity) and her venture's needs ($12M with gradual dilution) due to hardware development cycles. Second, term sheet interpretation proves challenging across multiple dimensions: statistically, she struggles with complex dilution calculations involving liquidation preferences and option pools; pragmatically, she notices concerning disconnects between investor rhetoric ("take your time") and actual terms (demanding monthly metrics); and regarding choice dynamics, she lacks tools to effectively compare different investor offers, particularly in weighing prestigious VC networks against more patient capital. Third, the "move fast and break things" pressure from current investors has already led to compromised safety protocols, resulting in a near-miss incident with a test truck. This situation highlights the dangerous misalignment between traditional software-focused venture capital expectations and hardware-intensive development cycles, particularly in safety-critical sectors like autonomous vehicles. Wei's case exemplifies how current funding structures can jeopardize both innovation and public safety. ##### 3. 🗺️Meaning: Why is it important to address this need, problem or opportunity? These challenges represent systemic problems in startup funding that is not limited to but most critical in mobility ventures: First, as Paul Graham notes in "High Resolution Funding," standardized low-resolution fundraising forces startups into predetermined patterns regardless of their unique needs. This particularly hurts mobility ventures where development timelines and capital needs vary drastically based on technological complexity. Without tools to justify customized funding structures, founders accept suboptimal capital that either rushes or constrains development. Second, the absence of rational meaning construction tools leads to misaligned partnerships. When founders can't unpack both statistical and pragmatic meanings of terms, they often accept structures that create future conflicts. In mobility ventures, this misalignment can force choices between investor expectations and safety requirements - a tension that traditional term sheets hide but language models could help surface. Third, these misalignments create critical safety and innovation issues. Recent autonomous vehicle accidents and micromobility company failures show how growth pressure from misaligned investors can compromise safety-critical development. With mobility technology becoming core infrastructure, getting capitalization right isn't just about company success - it's about sustainable industry development. ##### 4. 🧭🟩Inferring solution: Describe the solution you are proposing We propose CIVA (Conversational Inference for equity Valuation Agreement), a computational system designed initially for mobility ventures seeking SAFE investments. Our focus on mobility ventures is deliberate, as these companies present unique challenges by combining capital-intensive hardware development with safety-critical systems, making them particularly vulnerable to misaligned investor incentives and development pressures. Building on rational meaning construction principles, CIVA implements a three-level architecture. At the computational theory level, CIVA constructs explicit world models of mobility venture development cycles, incorporating hardware validation requirements, safety milestones, capital intensity at different stages, and risk-adjusted valuations. At the representation level, it implements the PostMoneySAFEModel for quantitative ownership modeling, probabilistic models for milestone-based valuation changes, development timeline simulation incorporating validation gates, and comparative analysis of different investor profiles and terms. At the implementation level, CIVA provides a natural language interface translating investor communications into formal queries, visualization of safety-capital trade-offs across scenarios, term sheet interpretation showing both statistical implications and pragmatic meanings, and dynamic adjustment of valuations based on milestone achievement. This structured approach helps founders like Wei systematically evaluate and negotiate SAFE terms while maintaining alignment between capital needs and safety requirements. ##### 5. 🧭💜Inferring need: Describe your potential users or customers Our primary users are early-stage startup founders, particularly those who may lack access to sophisticated financial advisory services. This includes: - First-time entrepreneurs - Founders from underrepresented backgrounds - Student entrepreneurs - International founders navigating unfamiliar financing environments Secondary users include entrepreneurship educators, accelerator programs, and early-stage investors who need tools to model and communicate complex equity arrangements. ##### 6. 🧭💜Inferring need: How are your users or customers currently dealing with the need or problem you identified? Currently, founders in mobility ventures are addressing financing challenges through suboptimal approaches that often lead to compromised outcomes. These founders typically rely on basic cap table calculators and Excel models that cannot effectively capture the complexity of their development cycles or safety requirements. Many are forced to engage expensive legal counsel and financial advisors, spending significant resources to interpret term sheets and negotiate with investors. Some founders attempt to adapt traditional software startup metrics to their hardware-intensive ventures, leading to misaligned expectations and dangerous pressure to skip validation steps. When faced with standard term sheets, these founders often accept predetermined funding structures that either rush development dangerously or constrain it unnecessarily, as they lack the tools to justify alternative approaches. In cases where they receive multiple term sheets, founders struggle to systematically compare different investor offers, particularly in weighing prestigious VC networks against more patient capital sources. Most critically, founders like Wei often find themselves caught between investor pressure for rapid growth and their internal understanding of necessary safety protocols, frequently resulting in compromised validation processes. Without tools to effectively communicate their unique development needs, these founders often accept financing structures seeding future conflicts between investor expectations and safety requirements. ##### 7. 🗺️🟩💜Meaning: What social or environmental impact will your solution provide? Our solution will create significant social impact by enabling the safe and sustainable development of critical mobility technologies that will form tomorrow's transportation infrastructure. By helping founders maintain proper safety validation processes despite growth pressures, we directly contribute to preventing potential accidents and fatalities in autonomous vehicles, drones, and other mobility technologies. We are democratizing access to sophisticated financial decision-making tools, particularly benefiting technical founders from underrepresented backgrounds who may lack access to extensive financial advisory networks. The solution helps create more equitable startup financing by enabling founders to better communicate their value and negotiate balanced terms, reducing the pressure to compromise safety for growth. Furthermore, by aligning investor expectations with proper development timelines, we support the creation of sustainable mobility ventures that prioritize social responsibility alongside financial returns. Our system encourages the development of mobility technologies that can significantly reduce transportation-related environmental impact through optimized routing and reduced emissions. By helping founders strike the right balance between development speed and safety validation, we contribute to building public trust in autonomous technologies while ensuring their responsible deployment. This approach supports the broader transition to safer, more efficient, and more sustainable transportation systems. ##### 8. 🧭💜Inferring competition: How is your proposed solution different from other solutions? Our solution fundamentally differs from existing approaches by providing an integrated framework that combines probabilistic reasoning with natural language processing to address the unique challenges of mobility venture financing. Unlike traditional cap table calculators that only perform basic dilution calculations, our system implements a sophisticated PostMoneySAFEModel that captures both immediate ownership implications and long-term development considerations. While existing solutions focus solely on statistical analysis, our approach uniquely combines three analytical frameworks: statistical analysis for observable patterns, pragmatic analysis for communicative inferences, and rational choice analysis for decision patterns. Our system differs from standard financial modeling tools by incorporating explicit modeling of development timelines, safety requirements, and validation milestones, enabling founders to quantitatively justify non-standard funding needs. Unlike existing term sheet analysis tools, our solution provides a natural language interface that can interpret both statistical implications and pragmatic meanings from investor communications, surfacing potential misalignments between stated intentions and term sheet implications. Furthermore, our system stands apart by implementing a dynamic, milestone-based valuation model that can adjust to the unique development patterns of hardware-intensive ventures, rather than applying one-size-fits-all growth metrics from software startups. ##### 9. Please provide 1-3 words that best describe the category Startup operations, AI, Transportation ### investor understanding ##### 10. What are your expectations from the program? I expect to leverage designX's structured venture-building approach to validate our solution with real users and refine our product-market fit. Access to diverse founding teams through the MIT ecosystem will be crucial for testing our probabilistic programming innovation in real-world scenarios. ##### 11. "What will your team bring to the program cohort?" As a PhD researcher at MIT working at the intersection of AI and entrepreneurship, I bring deep technical expertise in probabilistic programming and a passion for democratizing startup financing. My ongoing collaboration with the MIT Probabilistic Computing Lab positions me to contribute unique insights to the cohort while learning from peers' diverse perspectives. ##### 12. "How did you discover MITdesignX?" Through my collaboration with Prof.Svafa Grönfeldt and Gal Ringel on educating startup operations tools, I was deeply impressed by MITdesignX’s enthusiasm for experimentation, perspective on technology, and commitment for advancing startup science. The opportunity to work with designX resonates strongly with my mission, as it would provide crucial access to founders for testing and validating my capitalization tools. Given my technical and operational capability, I judged capitalization is where I can contribute the most for entrepreneurship.