Founding VC partnerships & sales, pre-seed to enterprise.

VC partnerships, built from the first day.

Founding team, VC/PE Partnerships and Channel Sales at Deel. 220% of quota.

Founding team, VC/PE Partnerships at Deel. Helped build the program from zero.

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A
Ajla BoticJacksonville, FL
220%of quota, Q3 '26
Day 1founding VC/PE partnerships & channel sales team
600+VC/PE partners
Day 1founding VC/PE partnerships & channel sales team
600+VC/PE partners
50+events in 12 mo
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At a glance

Now
Deel, founding member of the VC/PE partnerships team
Partners
Y Combinator, a16z, Sequoia, General Catalyst, Techstars, and more
Built
Tiered partner credits, referral credit rules, the team's outreach scripts
Range
Pre-seed to enterprise
Events
50+ in the past year, from founder and investor dinners to hackathons and the SF Tech Week Gala

Deel works with 600+ VC and PE partners. A few of them:

  • Y Combinator

My results at Deel

I find the venture-backed startups that need Deel most, reach them through their investors, and close them, from pre-seed to enterprise.

  • %220% of quota in Q3 2026, up from 120%
  • ✦AI agents that research an account and draft outreach in under 5 minutes
  • ★50+ events hosted or staffed in the past year: Deel, Woven Matter, the Women's Board, hackathons, and the SF Tech Week Gala
  • ✎Wrote the outreach scripts our team runs today
  • ▶+40% payroll meetings after a training video game I built
  • ⚙Automations across Salesforce, Apollo, PitchBook, Outreach, and more

How a deal usually starts

  1. ◆VC or PE partnerOne of 600+ funds
  2. ↗Warm or coldFrom events I host, or cold with the partner behind me
  3. ☏Founder callFind the real need
  4. ✓Live on DeelWith partner credits

The VC program I helped build at Deel

I joined Deel's VC/PE partnerships team at the start and helped build the program from scratch.

  • $Credits tiered by partner: $5K, $10K, $25K
  • ∞Free payroll seats for founders, for life
  • ⇄Iterated the referral credit program so partner managers and reps both get credit
  • ★50+ events hosted or staffed in the past year: Deel, Woven Matter, the Women's Board, hackathons, and the SF Tech Week Gala
  • ✎Wrote the outreach scripts our team runs today
  • ▶+40% payroll meetings after a training video game I built

Credits by partner tier

Bigger partners like Y Combinator, General Catalyst, and Sequoia get the top tier.

$5KStandard
$10KTier 2
$25KTop tier

VC-backed companies that run on Deel

  • ElevenLabs a16z, ICONIQ Growth
  • Artisan Y Combinator
  • Revolut SoftBank, Tiger Global
  • Allium Amplify Partners
  • Outreach Sapphire, Meritech
  • Kintsugi Vertex Ventures
  • Bloomreach Goldman Sachs
  • Siena AI Sierra Ventures
  • Moralis EQT Ventures
  • Planhat Sprints Capital
  • Cryptio Alven
  • Nium Riverwood Capital
  • RoomPriceGenie Five Elms Capital
  • TXOne Networks TGVest Capital
  • AIRS Medical BSK Investment

Building what I wish I had

Things I've made to help my team sell, and one for fun.

Experience

  • 2026 to nowDeel · Account Manager, VC/PE Partnerships & Channel Sales (Founding Team)220% of quota
  • 2024 to nowWoven Matter · Founding Head of Sales & PartnershipsAgents & automations for sales processes
  • 2025 to 2026Fidelity · Account ManagerWhere I started working with founders and investors.SIE, Series 7 & 63 in 3.5 months
  • 2023 to 2024Morgan & Morgan · Account Manager, led a team of 8Full time while finishing my B.S. at the University of North Florida.$2.5M+ negotiated in settlements
  • 2023 to nowWomen's Board, Wolfson Children's Hospital · VolunteerI help plan the board's year-end gala and support the Florida Forum speaker series, which raises awareness and funds for the hospital. Speakers since I got involved in 2023 include Steve Wozniak, Coach K, Caitlin Clark, José Andrés, and Venus Williams.$1M to $1.5M raised a year

Hi, I'm Ajla.

For the past several years I've been in the venture and founder world. These days I help founders get set up at Deel right after their round closes, whether they're three people at pre-seed or already at enterprise scale.

If you've heard of Project Prometheus, Jeff Bezos's physical AI company that launched with $6.2 billion, or Minerva, the AI marketing platform that just raised $20 million from The General Partnership and 8VC, those are a couple of the companies I've recently helped bring on. I work with founders all over the world, too, like Dodo Payments out of India, which lets software companies get paid in 220+ countries and 80+ currencies.

I enjoy meeting people, especially founders and investors, and I always stay in touch as they grow. I've also learned that finding the right startups early matters more than almost anything else when you're building a program that lasts. So do the relationships. One partner at a VC firm or accelerator who trusts you can open the door to dozens of portfolio companies, and that trust is worth more than any lead list.

Now I'm looking to bring that experience to my next challenge in AI and tech. It's the space I'm most interested in and where I've learned the most, and I want to push myself to see how big a difference I can make.

Ajla
Emailajla@boticventures.com
LinkedInajla-botic
Based inJacksonville, FL
▶

A video game that teaches payroll

+40% payroll meetings bookedHighest quiz pass ratesStrong retention

Product trainings lose people fast, so I built a Flappy Bird style video game to teach Deel's payroll product. After the session, payroll meetings booked rose 40%, more than any other product.

Deel Air home screen: a 3D globe with a route from Tel Aviv, plus cards, legs flown, and quiz points
The globe: pick a route
Gameplay: a plane flying through purple gates on the Tel Aviv to San Francisco leg
Flying a leg
Play it yourself
⚙

Salesforce × Apollo

Before this, prospect data lived in two places, and reps copied it from Apollo into Salesforce by hand. I connected the two so new prospects, contact details, and outreach activity land in Salesforce on their own. Reps work from one clean record, nothing gets lost between tools, and data entry time goes back into talking to founders and investors.

It's one of many automations I've built across Salesforce, Apollo, PitchBook, Outreach, Google Drive, and Excel.
◎

Portfolio Radar

Each week I pick a few AI startups that look about to grow, using public signals like a new round or AI hiring.

This week's 3 or 4 picks: company, investor, why now
✿

The Private Pantry

The Private Pantry: saved recipes and a weekly meal plan with per-meal costs
Saved recipes and this week's plan
The Private Pantry: daily nutrition, weekly budget, dietary preferences, and hosting events
Budget, preferences, and hosting
Budget-friendlyHealthy by defaultLess food wasteNo recipe paywalls

An app I'm building with AI to make good meals accessible to everyone. Groceries keep getting more expensive, and eating well shouldn't depend on your budget or a recipe subscription.

You set a weekly budget and see what every meal costs, plus how much you save versus eating out. Daily nutrition and dietary preferences help you eat healthy. Your pantry and grocery list share ingredients across meals, so you buy less and throw out less. And every recipe is free, with no paywall.

It also keeps your weekly plan, saved recipes, and hosting plans in one place, with a "What's for dinner?" quiz for the nights you can't decide.

The web app is live, and I'm now building the iOS app.

Visit the site