Welcome to Homebase AI - A weekly newsletter where we share our interviews with founders & leaders building next-gen AI companies and curate interesting news, insights & trends in the AI space for our community members.

What’s on tap today:

• Podcast

• Our interview with João Ferrão

• Weekly Headline Recap

• What's trending in AI this week

• Community Update

• How Homebase Helps You

🎙️ This Week’s Interview

AI Founder Story

From Idea To Content In 5 minutes

Quick Background

What happens when you challenge GPT-4 to build a company with just $1,000 and one human hour a day?

João Ferrão dos Santos did exactly that—and the internet couldn’t look away. One LinkedIn post snowballed into 5M+ views, $100K raised, and global press.

But João didn’t stop at virality. He turned chaos into a system—and built Crafted, an AI ghostwriting tool that converts raw WhatsApp voice notes into top-performing LinkedIn posts in five minutes flat.

From Viral Experiment to Strategic AI Tool

The experiment revealed more than the power of reach—it exposed a paradox: innovators build startups, yet most ignore the highest-ROI channel—consistent, credible, organic content.

Executives know posting matters, but time, fear, and “what do I even say?” stall the habit. Crafted removes each blocker and makes shipping the default.

Crafted: The Magic Button for Content Creation

Think of Crafted as a red button for visibility: record a 60–120s voice note in WhatsApp → get a draft with a strong hook, your tone, and zero “AI slop.”

Layer in 1:1 mentoring for positioning and accountability, and leadership teams turn into a company-wide thought engine—without ghostwriter lag.

Key Achievements & Insights:

The Problem Today →

Startups overspend on ads while leaders stay silent—leaving thousands of daily, free impressions on the table.

The Breakthrough →

Frictionless, speech-first creation turns even the busiest execs into visible operators. No blank page, no performative fluff.

The Proof Story →

Series A and Series C pilots show full leadership benches posting weekly with minimal effort and maximal credibility.

The Big Example →

One client saw a 10× lift in impressions once multiple leaders posted 1–2×/week, instead of relying on the CEO alone.

Why It Matters

The winners won’t outspend competitors. They’ll out-post them, compounding trust, talent, and pipeline.

And traction is proving it: Crafted now brings in $10k/month in revenue with active clients including an M&A law firm in London, an InsurTech company (London), AI-driven teams like Agents and Notetakers (SF/global), and a FinTech x AI venture in NYC.

Watch the full interview below! 👇

The Ultimate Lesson

Behavior Change Over Tools

Software can’t cure fear or fuzziness; mentorship + AI creates accountability, clarity, and a cadence leaders stick to.

Post Like You Talk

Spontaneous voice notes become authentic posts—cutting creation time from hours to minutes, while sounding exactly like you.

How does a 90-second voice note become a high-performing post that still sounds like you—and how do teams keep that pace week after week?

Read the full case study and steal João’s playbook →

HEADLINE ROUNDUP
Headline recap

• xAI Rockets to $200B After $10B Burst

  Elon Musk’s AI giant reportedly closes a fresh $10B round, vaulting the company to a staggering $200B valuation amid breakneck spend on compute.

  👉Bigger than hype or bubble?

• Nscale Snags $1.1B to Build AI Data Centers

  Nvidia-backed Nscale raises $1.1B from Nvidia, Dell, Nokia and others to accelerate AI data-center rollouts across the U.S. and Europe.

  👉Where’s all that GPU going?

• Oracle x Meta Eye $20B AI Cloud Pact

  Oracle is set to team up with Meta on a potential $20B AI cloud deal aimed at turbocharging European AI workloads.

  👉A new hyperscale alliance?

• Distyl AI Raises $175M at $1.8B

  Enterprise AI builder Distyl lands a Series B at a 9x jump to a $1.8B valuation as demand for AI orchestration surges.

  👉What’s powering the 9x leap?

• Palantir Wins Surprise Deal with 109‑Year‑Old Titan

  Palantir expands from battlegrounds to boardrooms with a marquee AI contract from a century-old industrial heavyweight.

  👉Who’s the mystery Titan?

TRENDS
What's trending in AI

Contextual AI

• Key Player: Enterprise RAG platform that builds production-grade AI applications using proprietary RAG 2.0 technology.

• Market Value: Valued at $609 million after raising $80 million Series A in August 2024.

• Adoption: Deployed by Fortune 500 companies including HSBC, Qualcomm, and Shipbob for knowledge management and technical support.

• Recent Developments: Announced general availability of its enterprise platform in January 2025, outperforming GPT-4o and Claude 3.5.

Growth: Hit 4.4K search volume with explosive +3,233% growth since September 2024. The company successfully transitioned from stealth to serving multiple Fortune 500 clients within just over a year.

Why It Matters: Solves the critical gap between impressive AI demos and reliable production systems that enterprises actually need. Traditional RAG systems are often too brittle for mission-critical applications.

The Big Picture: Represents the next wave of enterprise AI where specialized agents transform high-value knowledge work. Addresses the 99% of AI's potential that remains untapped in specialized business applications.

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