Atrium

INSEAD

Industry: Consumer Tech / AI

MBA Founding Student Name(s): Kevin Lu (INSEAD MBA 25J)

Brief Description of Solution: Atrium digitizes the art of building professional relationships at scale, empowering professionals with the clarity, intel, and AI to forge enduring networks.

Funding Dollars: AUD$1.3m, USD$900k

What led you to launch this venture? In VC for 6 years, I learnt first-hand how important it is to nurture relationships. You never know who could create the next big thing and you had to stay in touch with thousands of people. Over time, I realized that my spreadsheet full of contacts, nor my clunky Salesforce CRM were enough to help me thoughtfully and intentionally build my network. So, I’m building Atrium to help those who understand that relationships are everything, to better recall, activate, and build their networks.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Raising the AUD$1.3m, USD$900k  pre-seed round from Airtree, Ten13, and 10+ other top investors and operators in Australia and the U.S.

What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? It is a technical challenge to infer from an email base, who the contacts are of a people’s email. We developed a proprietary engine to enrich email information to create a holistic view of a person’s engaged network.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? INSEAD has helped in two main ways:

1. Access to the Alumni network allowed me to interview 53 founders and investors on their pain points, which gave me the conviction to solve this problem.

2. Perhaps most importantly – through the broad and rich INSEAD MBA program, which threw me into various leadership experiences with esteemed colleagues from all over the world, I developed a quiet confidence in myself to tackle anything that comes my way.

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Capstone was surprisingly the most helpful class because it reminded me of the realities of day-to-day operating and building, which translate to both considerations that not just strategic, but also tactical. I really enjoyed being trust into a real-world scenario where we had to be thoughtful about every angle of a business; this has helped me take multiple perspectives in my startup today.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Dr. Erdem Dogukan Yilmaz, who taught New Business Ventures, made the most significant contribution. Out of class, De Erdem helped me think through co-founder dynamics, which was great perspective. Inside the classroom, Dr Erdem’s teachings on the various paths startups can come to see success was enlightening even though I had worked in Venture Capital for 6 years. Beyond the MBA, Dr Erdem is still helping me with introductions. I’m very grateful to Dr Erdem for his support.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? It did help that I was heavily involved in my local ecosystem as a VC for 6 years prior to my MBA experience. More interestingly, Craig Blair – INSEAD 96J – was my direct report for 4 of those 6 years. He helped my development immensely, looping me into the firm’s largest deals. It was also his recommendation to go to INSEAD, and now it has come full circle in that he has also invested in Atrium.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? As A.I. commoditizes intelligence, the relative importance of relationships increases. Our long-term goal is to help elevate how we build relationships, a skill that is not quite taught at schools despite how foundational it is a functioning society and our long-term happiness (see the +85 year Harvard Study of Adult Development). For Atrium, this means being becoming the best nurture, activate and grow your network.

Looking back, what is the biggest lesson you wished you’d known before launching and scaling your venture? Perhaps cliché, but doing a startup requires a heavy level of honesty, particularly in the face of feedback that may go against your initial hypothesis. You need to be very honest with yourself and helps to have mentors and co-founders that can help you with that. So, seek mentors!

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