This AI-powered startup studio plans to launch 100,000 companies a year
Henrik Werdelin has spent the last 15 years helping entrepreneurs build big brands like Barkbox through his startup studio Prehype. Now, with his new, New York-based venture Audos, he’s betting that AI can help him scale that process from “tens” of startups a year to “hundreds of thousands” of aspiring business owners.
The timing certainly feels right. Mass layoffs across a variety of industries have left many workers reconsidering their career paths, while AI tools have markedly lowered the barrier to building digital products and services. At the center of that Venn diagram is Werdelin’s latest venture, with its promise to help “everyday entrepreneurs create million dollar AI companies” without requiring technical skills.
Werdelin’s journey from Prehype to Audos reflects the broader transformation happening in entrepreneurship right now. At Prehype, the focus was on working with tech founders to build traditional startups, the kind that might raise millions and aim for billion-dollar exits.
Now, he tells TechCrunch, “What we’re trying to do is take all that knowledge, all the methodology that we’ve created over the years of building all these big companies, and really trying to democratize it.”
The idea is that “everyday entrepreneurs” may sense a shift is afoot but may not be keen to experiment with so-called AI agents or know how to reach customers. Audos is more than happy to help them, supplying these individuals with AI tools to build sophisticated products using natural language, and taking advantage of social media algorithms to find them their niche customers.