The VC-backed startup that turned cow DNA into a crystal ball

In March, Initialized Capital posted a job for a Social Media Freelancer.

The role paid $7,000 to $8,000 a month for about 20 hours a week. Initialized is the early-stage VC firm in San Francisco founded by Y Combinator partners, including Garry Tan. So I threw my name into the hat.

The job was mostly video. They were looking for someone who could "repackage long-form or raw content into short-form storytelling" and "do a lot of video editing."

A few weeks later I was on Zoom with Tiffany Foo, their Head of Talent. She told me something on that call I didn't realize was so valuable until months later.

Tiffany walked me through who the role would serve. The big names in their portfolio, like Rippling and Coinbase, weren't the focus.

"They don't need us," she said. "They have entire marketing teams."

Initialized focuses on its seed and Series A companies, "because they do not have marketing teams, or if they do, they're just getting off the ground."

Then she brought up one of their launch videos. "It's all about the cows, in case you saw the cow one."

The full video introduced Feanix, a startup that uses genomics and AI to help dairy farmers manage their herds. Mitch Angove, one of its co-founders, was the face of it.

"What an incredible video," she said. Then she told me Mitch had 60 LinkedIn connections when Feanix came out of stealth.

"6-0?" I asked.

"6-0, yeah."

Feanix already had 1% of the Dairy Farmers of America on its platform and was net positive as a seed-stage company. And the founder had 60 connections, "probably all academics and not in tech."

She said that was "pretty par for the course for first-time founders." When Initialized tries to tag its companies on X, half the time they don't have accounts. "They definitely don't have a YouTube channel."

Then she said the line that stuck with me most. "They're not trying to be an influencer, either." I rubbed my chin as I leaned in.

I went on to a second round with Cyndi Reseburg, their Head of Communications, but the role went to someone with more clipping experience.

At the time, I hadn't done much short-form clipping. Since then I've clipped many of the best moments from Richard Moore's Art of Sell vault of 150+ masterclasses into short videos. Those clips are now one of the top-performing formats on the Art of Sell LinkedIn company page.

Looking back, the most useful part of the whole process was my call with Tiffany. She described the exact founder I want to work with, someone with real traction, real revenue, no marketing team and almost no audience.

Mitch grew up on a dairy farm. In the Initialized video, he talks about the years when a farm goes without profit, and the years when the farm dies.

"I think it was like 8th grade that I learned about the power of genetics," he says. "And I came home so excited to tell my parents, like, guys, I found the solution to our farm."

Feanix is that solution that Mitch envisioned while just a teenager. Today the company sequences the whole genome of every cow on a farm. Then it combines that DNA with everything the farm already tracks, like milk and feed.

"All of the cows wear Fitbits," he told TBPN. "I mean, they're not made by Fitbit, but same thing." An AI model turns all of that data into a decision for each animal.

Mitch co-founded Feanix with Tom Bishop, PhD, the company's Chief Science Officer. They went through Y Combinator in 2023 and raised a $5.3M seed round led by Initialized in December 2025. Forbes put Mitch on its 30 Under 30 list for Science in 2025.

The interview that really got me excited was on TBPN, the daily tech show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays. Mitch got a 5-minute segment on their livestream on January 28, 2026, buried at the 3-hour mark.

He explained the product better than any website could.

"When she's a day old, I can predict with about 90% accuracy what her life is going to look like," he said. He meant whether she'll get sick, how much milk she'll make and when she'll get pregnant.

Jordi asked about pricing. "Per cow per year," Mitch said. "Instead of a seat, we got a cow."

Then Jordi followed up asking if the bottleneck was having enough people to sell.

"Actually, I'm the person who sells," Mitch said. "I'm literally every single farm we close, I'm the person who spoke to them."

Feanix's own Head of Revenue job post says Mitch closes in 1 to 2 meetings. The company now works with 30 of the roughly 150 largest dairies in the US.

Near the end, Jordi asked how many dairy cows there are on Earth.

"On Earth, there's like 100 million," Mitch said. "In the US, there's like 10 million."

"Job's not finished," John quipped.

Mitch's best content lives on other platforms.

His LinkedIn profile now has over 500 followers with only 3 posts. The Feanix Company page mostly posts job openings. Kate Chapman, their recently hired CTO, is the only person on the team writing about the work.

None of that surprises me. Mitch is busy building the growing team and he's personally closing every farm. Like for most founders, content is not the #1 priority on his list.

His best proof already exists, but lives on other people's channels.

Before I ever reached out to Mitch, I spent weeks learning about cows.

In my last issue I wrote about Teeg Stouffer, a documentary filmmaker whose studio produces a weekly show for Dan Venteicher, a dairy farmer in Iowa with 2.6 million followers. Dan pays about $40 a test to check his cows' genetics, and he makes the breeding calls himself.

All of that research brought me back to Initialized Capital. I knew the space, I knew the problem and I remembered Tiffany's cow video. So I did something I'd never done before and sent Mitch a cold email.

First I built Mitch a diagnostic that shows how his LinkedIn could make him the voice of his industry. On October 13th I emailed it to him with the subject line "will cyberpunk farming take you global?" I borrowed that line from the TBPN hosts.

I've already connected with Kate on LinkedIn and subscribed to her newsletter, Untangling Systems.

I haven't heard back from Mitch yet, and I get why. He's busy building with a small team.

I also turned the email into a LinkedIn post with the 3 tips I sent him.

Mitch is clearly a great closer. Where I can help is getting more of the right farm owners to know who he is before he ever calls.

If we were to work together, I'd start with his LinkedIn profile. His banner is just green grass right now, so I'd swap in a photo of Mitch with his cows and one line that tells farm owners what Feanix does.

Then I'd turn the rest of his profile into a landing page that sells the technology when he's not in the room.

I’d add the TBPN video to his Featured section. The 90% prediction from a day-old calf he mentioned in the interview is the kind of proof that has buyers arrive half-sold.

Next, I'd turn his sales meetings into posts. In every meeting, Mitch finds the money a farm is leaving on the table in its own data. If he shared one of those finds each week, his 30 farms alone would give him more than 7 months of posts.

Mitch has built a genomic prediction engine that the largest dairies in the US buy after 1 or 2 meetings. But there are 100 million dairy cows on Earth, and he can't be in every barn. His content can.

If you're a founder whose best proof lives on someone else's channel, share it on your own profile. Your buyers will look you up on LinkedIn before they ever take your call.

- Antonio

P.S. On Tuesday, November 10th at 11 AM ET, I'm hosting a fireside chat with Arturo Del Rio of Stacked Growth on how webinars help you capture demand and turn it into new clients. Save your seat here.