At Maple VC, we don't just invest early. We invest first. Today we celebrate one of the biggest milestones in Maple's portfolio: Clay crossed $100M ARR, just two years after passing $1M.
We built Maple around a belief: the best seed investors recognize greatness before the data can prove it. If you talk to any of our founders, they'll tell you: Maple was the first believer.
It's a surreal moment to reflect on — especially because Clay was one of the very first investments in our first fund back in 2017. What looks obvious today was deeply non-obvious then, and the journey to this point was anything but linear. It took a founding team with rare creativity, relentless truth-seeking, and clarity of vision to make it real.
The Talent Framework
We believe every great company is built by a combination of three archetypes: Inventors who spark breakthrough ideas, Builders who turn ideas into products and attract talent and capital, and Operators who scale organizations. Most investors gravitate toward Inventors or Operators. But Builders are often the most misunderstood — and the most essential.
Kareem Amin & Nicolae Rusan (Inventor / Builder)
What stood out immediately was how seamlessly both Nicolae and Kareem moved between archetypes. They could operate as Inventors — articulating entirely new technical paradigms and challenging long-held assumptions about how software should be built. And just as naturally, they switched into the Builder role, translating those ideas into something immediately tangible. A few years later, Varun Anand joined as the Operator, scaling the systems and processes behind the scenes.
The Investment Framework
We were introduced to Kareem and Nicolae through fellow Canadian expat Michael Hershfield (now also a proud Maple founder of Accrue). Kareem wasn't pitching a deck or walking through a demo. He was articulating a vision: making programming accessible to all.
What if non-engineers had their own version of the developer Terminal — something just as powerful, intuitive, and limitless as the tools developers use to write code? They envisioned the spreadsheet as that environment: a familiar interface reimagined to give non-engineers superpowers.
When asked what he believed that others didn't, Kareem replied:
"Education won't solve the supply-demand imbalance of engineers. We need to give superpowers to non-developers."
Kareem Amin, Clay — 2017At the time, in 2017, AI was not mainstream and that belief was far from consensus. Bootcamps to train engineers were booming. Kareem's perspective felt non-obvious — and refreshingly different.
Where Clay is Headed
Today marks a defining milestone. Clay has crossed $100M ARR, up from $1M just two years ago. But the metrics only tell part of the story. The outputs are remarkable because the inputs — a strong foundation, a unique culture with unapologetic creativity — are exceptional.
Not a single enterprise customer has churned. Each $1 invested grows 15x — a ratio that's tripled in recent years. Clay created GTM Engineering as a category: thousands of jobs, hundreds of agencies, and 70+ self-organized global clubs.
What began as a no-code spreadsheet is now the operating system for GTM Engineering — a category Clay defined and continues to lead. And despite crossing $100M ARR, Clay is still early in its journey.
"Andre was early to commit, early to double down before everyone else recognized that we had traction, and was consistently available to discuss our positioning, our fundraising plan and cheerleader for the team throughout the journey."
Kareem Amin, Clay
We're proud to have been one of the first believers in Clay back in 2017, before a single dollar of revenue — and to have stayed constant during the wilderness years. That conviction put us in a position to triple down at the Series A+ and Series B rounds, investing the largest aggregate check (~$15M) we've ever written into a single startup.
At Maple VC, First Check isn't just an investment strategy — it's a philosophy. We believe in Builders before the world does.