# Benedict Wolters
GTM Engineer at HUD (YC W25), San Francisco
Taglines: Improving frontier AI models; Creating the world of data entrepreneurs
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benedict-wolters
X: https://x.com/BenedictVwol
GitHub: https://github.com/BenedictWolters
Website: https://benedictwolters.com

Improving frontier models through RL environments and post-training data at HUD (YC W25).
Before HUD, I joined Clera, an AI career agent ($3M pre-seed), when our agent was other interns + me. Lived in hackerhouses with the founding team and scaled to the first 100k users by sending so many cold emails that people at hackathons and SF Uber drivers showed us my outreach.
Before that, I ran START Fellowship, an incubator and accelerator for founders from Africa and Latin America. Read 1,000+ applications and backed 30 of them. Still in love.

## Experience

### HUD (YC W25) (https://www.hud.ai)
GTM Engineer, 06/2026 – Present, San Francisco, CA
We build RL environments and post-training data for frontier AI models. I run go-to-market for our data marketplace, sourcing and onboarding the companies that sell data to AI labs. The market is brand new, so half the job is figuring out how it works.
Tags: YC W25, RL environments, Post-training data, Data marketplace

### Clera (https://www.getclera.com)
Founding Growth & GTM, 09/2025 – 06/2026, San Francisco, CA
An AI career agent: tell it what you want, and it introduces you to founders at 600+ venture-backed startups. Built from a 24/7 hacker house with the team.
- Built growth from scratch to 100k users and 1k+ signups a day
- Built agentic outreach reaching 15k+ leads a day
- Co-led the launch to #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt (#2 of the week)
- Helped the founders raise the $3M pre-seed: strategy, deck and investor outreach
Tags: Pre-seed, 24/7 hacker house, 0 → 100k users, Agentic outbound, GEO

### START Global (https://www.startglobal.org)
Managing Director & Board Member, START Fellowship, 05/2024 – 07/2025, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Ran START Fellowship, a philanthropic accelerator for young founders from Africa and Latin America, inside Europe's largest student-run startup initiative.
- Backed 30 startups with $650k in non-dilutive investments and ran a 7-figure program budget
- Led a team of 15+, and sat on the START Global board (2024–2025)
- Picked them from 1,000+ applications, scouting through 3 African and 8 Latin American countries and 40+ pitch events
- Grew applications by 160% and reached 6M+ entrepreneurs
- Our 150+ portfolio founders have raised $30M+ and created 500+ jobs, with alumni going on to YC, Techstars and 776
- Built the incubator that took 200+ startups from idea to MVP
Tags: Leadership, Philanthropic accelerator, Investment committees, Africa & LatAm
Fundraising & Investor Partnerships, 05/2023 – 05/2024, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Played matchmaker between founders and check-writers.
- Built a network of 200+ VCs, angels and accelerators across Latin America, Europe and Africa
- Helped 38 founders through their fundraising
Tags: 200+ investor network, Fundraising support, Deal flow
Fellowship startups we backed: Blinka (YC F26) (https://blinka.co), Helios, formerly HolaCasa (YC W23) (https://usehelios.ai), Satellites on Fire (https://www.satellitesonfire.com), Eywa (https://www.eywa.bio), Semion (https://semionbio.com), SphereBio (https://www.xspheres.com), Vexxel (https://www.vexxel.bio), Miido (https://miido.ai), Viatik (https://www.viatik.com), Greenfluidics (https://greenfluidics.com), Kresko RNAtech (https://www.kreskornatech.com), Blusink (https://www.blusink.com)
Video: START Fellowship 2025 Aftermovie · Batch 5, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuYmVZPzl-M
Video: START Summit 2025 Aftermovie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq0tYweBlwI
Video: START Fellowship 2024 Aftermovie · Batch 4, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-qr1tUG5lI
Video: START Summit 2024 Aftermovie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Gku6AxhXU

## Talks, press & more

### Press
- HSG students support startups from emerging markets with START Fellowship: University of St. Gallen, Feb 2025, https://www.unisg.ch/en/newsdetail/news/hsg-students-support-startups-from-emerging-markets-with-start-fellowship/

### Launches
- DataVendor public beta: GTM, 600k+ views on X, Oct 2026, https://x.com/datavendor_ai/status/2113314504859852832
- Clera on Product Hunt: Launch team, #1 Product of the Day, #2 Product of the Week, Apr 2026, https://www.producthunt.com/products/clera

### Talks
- Africa Summit 2024: Speaker, "Empowering African Entrepreneurs Through Ecosystems and Hubs", Africa Association · University of St. Gallen, May 2024
- Latin America Week 2024: Speaker, "Career Prospects in Latin America", University of St. Gallen, Oct 2024, https://latinamerica.unisg.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/HSG_ROOT/Institut_Latinamerica/Latin_America_Week/Latin_America_Week_2024_Program.pdf
- START Summit 2025: Speaker, "Inside the Accelerator: Scaling Dreams or Selling Hope?", 7,000+ attendees · St. Gallen, Mar 2025
- START Fellowship Demo Day: Host, Presented 10 of our startups to 200+ VCs, START Campus · St. Gallen, May 2025

### Investment committees
- Berlin: Merantix AI Campus, Mar 5, 2025
  - Invested in FlameSense (Chile, Climate tech)
  - Invested in XiA'H (Mexico, Biotech): https://www.xiah.com.mx
  - Invested in Nutrix AI (Argentina, Health tech)
  - Invested in Oxtron (Mexico, Climate tech): https://www.oxtron.mx
- START Summit: On stage, day two, Mar 21, 2025
  - Invested in Texula (Egypt, Materials): https://texula.com
  - Invested in BERA (Colombia, Femtech)
  - Invested in Blue Bite Biotech (Chile, Biotech): https://bluebite.bio
  - Invested in Piggy Wallet (Argentina, Fintech): https://www.piggywallet.app
- Munich: Wayra, Telefónica's corporate VC, Apr 16, 2025
  - Invested in Homeos (Ecuador, Health tech)
  - Invested in Oliq Africa (Kenya, Fintech): https://www.oliq.africa
  - Invested in Talentum (Argentina, HR tech): https://talentumjobs.com
  - Invested in Helpy (Colombia, Edtech)

### Judging & scouting
- Startup selection: 1,000+ applications read, 30 picked for Batch 5
- Pitch competitions & hackathons: Organized 40+ in 13 countries, on the jury too
- Venture scout: Boardy, LvlUp Ventures and more

### Board & advisory
- START Global: Board Member, 2024 – 2025, https://www.startglobal.org
- START Fellowship: Advisor, 2025 – 2026

## Projects

### Outbound automation engine (Clera · 2025 – 2026)
Agentic outbound to 15k+ leads a day.

### Product Hunt launch (Clera · Apr 2026)
#1 Product of the Day and #2 of the week.
https://www.producthunt.com/products/clera

### benedictwolters.com (Side project · 2026)
An AI version of me, an MCP server, a curl card and a travel map.

## Education
- University of St. Gallen (HSG): Business Administration · Didn't graduate, still administering business, 2022 – 2025, St. Gallen, Switzerland
- Bridge House School: Semester abroad · Tennis and football teams, 2019, Franschhoek, South Africa
- Wilhelms-Gymnasium: Abitur · English debating club, 2013 – 2022, Stuttgart, Germany

## Stack
GitHub, Supabase, PostHog, Claude, OpenAI, Grok, Resend, Linear, Wispr Flow, Figma, Clay, Sixtyfour, Instantly, Octolane, HeyReach, Notion

Used to use: Cursor, Langfuse, n8n, Dify, Amplitude, Brevo, HubSpot, Aimfox, Linked Helper, Warmly, Asana, Microsoft Office

## Side quests
- Behind the decks whenever someone lets me
- Scouting startups for Boardy, LvlUp Ventures and more
- 2.7× around the earth by plane in the last 12 months
- Lived in Germany, South Africa, Switzerland, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and the US

## 2026 goals
- Play DJ sets: 1 of 2 so far
- Post on X and LinkedIn: 3 of 20 so far

## Languages
- German: native (level 10/10)
- English: fluent (level 9/10)
- French: rusty, warms up fast (level 6/10)
- Spanish: conversational, LatAm-trained (level 5/10)

## Main quests (bucket list)
- Visit every country: 25 of 195
- Road trip from Stuttgart to Cape Town: not yet
- Skydive: not yet
- Backflip on skis: not yet
Countries visited: Argentina, Austria, Colombia, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, United Kingdom, United States of America, Vatican

## Note: Toolbox
What I usually play with

- **[Claude](https://claude.ai)**, **[OpenAI](https://openai.com)** and **[Grok](https://grok.com)** for anything really.
- **[GitHub](https://github.com)** and **[Supabase](https://supabase.com)** when the E in GTME is needed.
- **[Instantly](https://instantly.ai)** and **[Resend](https://resend.com)** for email.
- **[HeyReach](https://www.heyreach.io)** for LinkedIn.
- **[Octolane](https://www.octolane.com)** to track money.
- **[PostHog](https://posthog.com)** to stalk users.
- **[Sixtyfour](https://www.sixtyfour.ai)** to stalk anyone.
- **[Figma](https://www.figma.com)** to design what I can't prompt anymore (rare).
- **[Notion](https://www.notion.so)** and **[Linear](https://linear.app)**, love & hate.
- **[Wispr Flow](https://wisprflow.ai)**, certified yapper.
- **[Clay](https://www.clay.com)** rarely using anymore tbh but OG.

## Not using anymore
- **[n8n](https://n8n.io)**
- **[Dify](https://dify.ai)**
- **[HubSpot](https://www.hubspot.com)**
- **[Amplitude](https://amplitude.com)**
- **[Asana](https://asana.com)**
- **[Microsoft Office](https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365)**
- **[Langfuse](https://langfuse.com)**
- **[Cursor](https://cursor.com)**
- **[Aimfox](https://aimfox.com)**
- **[Linked Helper](https://www.linkedhelper.com)**
- **[Warmly](https://www.warmly.ai)**
- **[Brevo](https://www.brevo.com)**

## Contact
Email via the button on https://benedictwolters.com. Ask the AI version of me at https://benedictwolters.com.