The Founding Father's Startup
How Two Dreams Fueled One Mission
It was 6 a.m. at Miami International.
Philipp Wehn hadn't slept much. He'd just spent two weeks on parental leave, supposedly relaxing with his wife and seven-month-old daughter, but really he'd been soft-fundraising the whole time. Trying to get anyone, literally anyone, interested in his industrial AI idea. The reception had been brutal. Germany's top 40 under 40. Top 10 at Siemens. Won the German M&A award with his master's thesis. None of it seemed to matter.
"Nobody cared," he recalls with a laugh.
He was convinced he wanted to pursue his vision, but he also had a kid. He couldn't just walk away from a full-time salary.
Then a woman approached him in the airport: "Your daughter is so cute!"
Her husband followed, taking note of Philipp's Golden State Warriors hoodie. They chatted. The husband mentioned he sometimes invests in companies. They exchanged numbers. A week later there was a Zoom call. The investor brought in his best friend from Seattle. Philipp pitched Nexxa for an hour. A week later he had his first angel commitment.
"Since then, we call my daughter the chief fundraising officer."
Philipp had moved from Germany to San Francisco four years prior with two dreams that most people thought were incompatible: To become a founder and a father.
His first daughter was born in August 2023. He began working on Nexxa that same winter. On paper, the timing looked imprudent.
"If you’re a driven person, having children is not going to reduce your motivation to build a career. It's going to accelerate it."
That airport moment was proof. His daughter hadn’t slowed him down. She’d opened doors. "My drive to do this is 10 times higher now because I have kids," Philipp says, his voice lighting up. "I'm doing this for my family. That makes me so much more motivated."
The real test came when Nexxa was accepted into A16z Speedrun. His wife was three to four months pregnant with their second daughter. Demo day would land one week after the due date. He'd be in L.A. for three months while his wife juggled a job, a toddler, and pregnancy. They looked at each other and knew: "It was a no-brainer that we would accept."
In week two of Speedrun, his daughter brought home COVID from daycare. The whole family got sick right when he was supposed to be making first impressions at A16z. It happened again when he closed his round. Time to celebrate, and his daughter came home sick.
"All of these things that happen outside of the problems of a startup, that's the hard stuff," he says.
His secret isn't grinding 24/7. It's discipline. He works from 8 a.m. to 6 or 7 p.m. Clear cut. He treats building a startup the way an athlete trains.
"Top athletes don't work out 24/7. It doesn't make them better. You’ve got to do the right things at the right time with the right quality."
He went first on Demo Day at Speedrun. They graduated as one of the top companies in the cohort.
Philipp moved to San Francisco with dreams others thought incompatible. The Miami airport proved otherwise. Those dreams weren't in conflict. They fueled each other.