In this episode, we interviewed Vasily Alekseenko, the founder behind two linked ventures. Rare Founders is a community and behavioural-intelligence platform serving a live network of 20,000+ founders and investors, and SoPhy is the networking product that grew out of it. The conviction tying them together: professional value isn't what you post, it's who you trust and who trusts you back.
We caught up with Vasily on early-adopter feedback, a half-closed pre-seed round with some serious names on the cap table, and a roadmap that runs from San Francisco to a live social graph.
Key takeaways:
📌 From Thesis to Working Product - SoPhy is now a live MVP - scan a QR code, add notes on what you discussed and promised, set follow-up reminders, and invite people who aren't on the app yet
📌 Proven in the Room - At a recent healthcare pitch night, an investor who couldn't remember a founder's name found her on the attendee list and connected in under 60 seconds - a deal-shaped introduction that would otherwise have vanished
📌 Angels Over VCs - On Purpose Half the pre-seed round is closed, with the former CEO of Kantar, a Swiss corporate VC partner, and a London fintech VC partner on the cap table - a deliberate bet on backers who give space to build it properly
📌 A Roadmap Toward the Social Graph - Public launch is weeks away across 40+ UK event partners, with behavioral analytics, an event-organizer product, and a live relationship graph all on the 9-12 month horizon
🔗 Connect with Vasily
Two months ago you gave us the exclusive about SoPhy - the first platform using Social Physics to map human relationships in a brand new way. What's happened since then?
A lot. We spent the last few months deep in research - speaking to hundreds of people about how they actually network today. What surprised us is that despite all the tools available, including AI, one fundamental problem remains unsolved: when you meet someone in person, that connection almost always gets lost
You scan their LinkedIn QR code and forget to follow up. You save their WhatsApp and they disappear into a list of hundreds. There's no context, no reminder, no record of what you discussed or what you promised. We all get busy. The noise wins
So we built our MVP to solve exactly that. SoPhy is a networking app for anyone who meets people in person - an event, a conference, a coffee meeting, anywhere. You connect by scanning each other's QR code, and instantly you can add notes - what you discussed, what you promised, what to follow up on - and set reminders so nothing falls through the cracks. You can also invite people who aren't on the app yet, and the moment they join, all their profile information is right there. Everything is searchable, everything is in one place
For events specifically, we've added another layer. When you check into an event powered by SoPhy, you can see everyone else who checked in and request a connection within 24 hours - so you never miss someone who was in the room but didn't cross your path. Your contact details are only shared once the other person accepts, so privacy is fully protected
We've tested this at several of our events, including one just last week with 200 attendees. We found a few bugs, we're fixing them now, and the app will be publicly available within the next couple of weeks
One of the biggest frustrations at any event is walking away knowing there were people in the room you should have met but never did.
You already tested it live - what was the early feedback? Walk us through a practical use case from your early adopters.
The most powerful moment happened literally last week at our healthcare open mic and pitching competition. An investor came up to me at the end of the evening looking for a founder who had pitched earlier. He remembered her face, her energy, her pitch - but not her name or her company. In a room that size, that connection would have been gone forever
He hadn't downloaded SoPhy yet. His exact words were something like: "I can't be bothered with event apps, they're all useless." I told him to give ours 60 seconds.
He downloaded SoPhy, checked into the event, scrolled through the attendee list, found her - and she'd already set her profile to share her contact details. He sent a connection request, she accepted almost immediately, and that was it. A real investor-founder connection that would never have happened otherwise
That's the problem we're solving. It's not glamorous, but it's real, and it happens everywhere people meet
We're still in testing - not full launch - so our focus right now is getting the fundamentals right before we scale. What we're building has never been done outside of research labs at MIT and Stanford, and we're not in a rush to get it wrong
SoPhy lets you set follow-up reminders directly on a connection's profile, so you never lose track of who you meant to reach out to and why.
"The best connections are made long before you need them."
You're raising, hiring and scaling while bringing SoPhy overseas to the AI engineers summit in San Francisco. How does it feel - and who's backing SoPhy?
Honestly? It's a lot. We're still running our events business on top of everything - and we now use every single one of those events as a live testing ground for the app. So on any given week I'm juggling fundraising, product, testing, events, hiring, and travel. I work pretty much every day. There's real pressure, real stress - but I genuinely love it. I wouldn't do it any other way
What makes it feel worth it is the moments when you see the app working. When someone finds a connection they would have lost. When the community gets it. We've been building toward this for years, and it's slowly starting to pay back. And everything happening in AI right now validates what we're doing - because as the world becomes more automated, real human relationships become more valuable, more rare, and harder to replicate. We know we're on the right path
On the funding side - we've closed half of our pre-seed round. Our cap table includes the former CEO of Kantar, one of the largest research companies in the world, a partner at a Swiss corporate venture fund, and a partner at a London-based fintech VC. We made a deliberate choice to focus on angel investors for now - not because we can't talk to VCs, but because we want people around the table who believe in what we're doing and give us the space to do it properly. We're in conversations to close the second half of the round in the next few weeks
San Francisco is about more than the summit. I'm going to understand the ecosystem, meet founders, meet investors - and start planting seeds now, 12 to 18 months before we go out for our seed round. That's exactly what SoPhy is built on: the best connections are made long before you need them
Every connection comes with its own space for notes - anything you want to remember about that person, what they said, what they're working on, what you promised each other.
What's next on your roadmap - and how can people sign up to download the app?
The waitlist is live now at getsophy.com. The app will be in the hands of the first users within the next couple of weeks - - if you want to be one of the first to try it, sign up now and we'll notify you the moment it's ready
In terms of what's coming: the immediate focus is getting the app into as many hands as possible through our 40+ event partners across the UK and three major conferences later this year. We're also building a version for event organizers - so SoPhy becomes the one app you need for any networking event, replacing check-in systems, badge scanning, and LinkedIn QR codes all at once
As we collect data, we'll start layering in behavioral analytics - giving users real insight into their networking patterns, not just a contact list. And within the next nine to twelve months, we'll launch the social graph: a live, dynamic map of your relationships that shows how they strengthen or weaken over time, all grounded in the science of Social Physics
We're also working on a white paper that will explain the science behind everything we're building - because full transparency is non-negotiable for us.
We want users to understand exactly what's happening and why
The short version: we're just getting started. But the foundation is solid, the community is real, and what's coming will fundamentally change how professional relationships are built and measured
About SoPhy
SoPhy applies Social Physics research - drawn from work at MIT and Stanford - to map human relationships in a new way. Two months before this interview it was a thesis and a community. As of this piece it's a live MVP: scan a QR code to connect, add notes on what you discussed and promised, set follow-up reminders, and invite people who aren't on the app yet. At SoPhy-powered events you can see everyone who checked in and request a connection within 24 hours, with contact details shared only on mutual accept.
Join SoPhy at getsophy.com
AI Central Voices is where the AI Central team sits down with the founders, executives, and builders shaping AI - going behind the scenes of how they operate, what they're betting on, and where the industry goes next.
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