The Pitch · Josh Muccio

Nectir Part 2: Chasing the Biggest AI Deal in Education

April 1, 2026·31 min·1 clip

An autistic founder reveals why she built an AI tool after paying $40,000 to be uncomfortable in college.

Kavita's pitch begins personally. She talks about autism and ADHD making classrooms feel wrong for her, then connects Nectar to the college experience that pushed her to build something different. The investors are listening for more than backstory, though. In the earlier pitch, the market was rough enough that she was ready to accept a flat round, and the room pushed back because it sounded like she was negotiating against herself. That confidence becomes the setup for the messier part. By this installment, Kavita has a plain fundraising problem: how do you raise money when the huge California Community Colleges contract may not move forward? The timing is almost rude. Her board meeting is at 11 a.m. The call with their point of contact is at 10 a.m. If the answer is bad, she walks into that room without the thing everyone is waiting on. Then the answer comes. The contact says they are good to go. It is still not a signed deal, and the episode does not pretend otherwise, but the room changes anyway. Kavita holds it together on the call, closes the laptop, screams into a pillow so the hotel does not panic, and runs to the board meeting sweating from excitement and anxiety. The board skips hello. Everyone wants to know whether it happened. She says it did, and the meeting turns into three hours of shock and celebration. The show keeps the win from getting too glossy. The host asks about a dollar amount, and Kavita brings the story back to diligence. Nothing is signed yet. Nectar spends the summer preparing for launch on trust, with a 26-page proposal to the chancellor and a presentation to the board of governors. The close lands where investors care: a 218K follow-on check from the Pitch Fund alongside Long Journey and Precursor Ventures, while the Series A is already closed.

As heard by us

A founder pitch that turns fundraising pressure into a tense, human cliffhanger.

Kavita Guy's Nectar story lands as a hard look at belief, pricing, and timing, with a founder who is building a classroom of the future while trying to raise money in a brutal market.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the pitch-room drama where a big contract and a record-setting round collide.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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