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What if the best way to get startup funding wasn’t cold emailing investors but posting your pitch like a job listing? That’s the radical shift Aiju T Biju and Athul Peter are orchestrating with Genezez, their founder-first networking platform that’s already attracted top-tier investors from Tencent and major Indian unicorns.
The duo’s approach is refreshingly contrarian. While most platforms chase scale, Genezez rejects half of all applicants. While competitors prioritise features, they focus on cutting noise. Their secret weapon? A personally vetted community where founders actually help each other instead of just networking.
The problem: founder isolation in plain sight
The startup ecosystem has a dirty secret. Despite India’s 100,000+ registered startups, most founders operate in isolation. They cold-email investors who’ll never respond. They join generic business networks filled with sales pitches. They struggle to find genuine peer support when building becomes overwhelming.
“In my five years as an entrepreneur, I haven’t been able to talk to a single person from Startup India or Kerala Startup Mission about what I’m doing,” Aiju reveals. This gap between institutional support and founder reality sparked their mission.
The problem extends beyond government programs. Traditional networking platforms optimise for engagement, not value. Founders scroll through promotional content instead of finding actionable help. Investment processes remain stuck in the pre-digital age, resembling job hunting from newspaper classifieds.
How Genezez flips the script
Genezez introduces “F2F”, founder-to-founder commerce, alongside familiar B2B and B2C models. The platform operates more like a curated community than a social network, with several key innovations:
- Investment wall: Instead of founders chasing investors, they post funding requirements like job listings. Investors browse opportunities and reach out directly. This reverses the power dynamic and reduces noise for both parties.
- Proximity networking: The app sends notifications when other founders are nearby, enabling spontaneous coffee meetings and local collaboration. Real connections over digital likes.
- Industry circles: Founders group by sector to share tactical knowledge. A textile entrepreneur with excess inventory can quickly find solutions from peers who’ve faced similar challenges.
- F2F Marketplace: A direct founder-to-founder marketplace where entrepreneurs can list and discover products or services offered by fellow founders. It’s a curated space that cuts out traditional agencies and builds trust through verified community membership.
- Requirement Wall: A posting board for founders who prefer not to search actively. Here, they can list specific business needs, and agencies or other founders can reach out directly with solutions, reversing the usual chase and saving time.
What makes Genezez different
The platform’s obsessive curation sets it apart. Aiju personally vets each of the 7,000+ applications, accepting only 50%. He checks LinkedIn profiles, company websites, and ensures genuine founder status before approval.
I personally message them if I have to remove someone. We need to keep the network clean.
This hands-on approach extends to daily engagement; both founders spend most of their screen time inside their own app, connecting with users and gathering feedback.
Their background provides credibility. Having built over 100 applications in five years through their software company, WeCodeLife, they understand both technical execution and founder pain points. When Aiju’s son was born on the same day he conceived Genezez’s concept, the mission became deeply personal.
Early validation signals
Major investors are taking notice organically, joining the platform not for promotion but as users seeking quality deal flow. The founders respect their privacy, avoiding typical name-dropping for marketing.
Users demonstrate genuine engagement. Founders regularly send detailed feedback documents. Genezez now has members from 15+ countries, where international founders actively connect with Indian entrepreneurs. The live chat feature sparks instant peer support when founders post questions.
Partnership offers are flowing in from major Indian companies. Investor calls increase weekly. Most importantly, user retention remains high as founders find actual value rather than just another social feed.
The bigger vision: democratizing entrepreneurship
Genezez’s ambitions extend beyond networking. They’re building GAIN (Genezez Angel Investor Network) to connect angels and anyone interested in investing with startup founders, democratizing access to startup funding globally.
Their roadmap includes AI-powered curation to match startups with suitable investors based on fundability scores and detailed insights. Offline events and educational webinars will complement digital interactions. The goal: supporting founders worldwide, not just facilitating connections.
The founders’ philosophy drives everything:
Don’t build something just to make money. Look at the world, see the problem, empathise with it. Only after empathising can you build a solution that actually solves it.
Why this matters now
Traditional startup support feels increasingly disconnected from founder reality. Government programs operate through bureaucracy, while entrepreneurs need peer networks. Generic business platforms prioritise advertising revenue over user value.
Genezez represents a return to community-driven entrepreneurship. By putting founders first, through curation, genuine connections, and value-focused features, they’re building what the ecosystem needs: a place where entrepreneurs support each other’s success.
Their one-year target of 100,000+ users suggests significant market hunger for authentic founder communities. As the startup landscape matures, quality connections matter more than quantity in networking.
The platform proves that sometimes the best innovation isn’t new technology, but applying existing tools thoughtfully to solve real human problems. In Genezez’s case, that means treating founders like people, not prospects.
The application is available on both the Play Store and App Store.
You may check out their LinkedIn and Instagram pages for more details.
Watch the full episode with Aiju T Biju and Athul Peter. It’s a conversation where they discuss their journey, technical background, and vision for Genezez.
Genezez is featured in The First Brick series. The series highlights promising early-stage companies.
What are your thoughts on Genezez by Aiju and Athul? Tell us in the comments below.
Did you read last week’s article on VitalView AI, a deep tech startup by Amal Shehu? Read it here.
