Eric Zhu was 17 when TechCrunch reported in July 2024 that his startup, Aviato, was emerging from stealth with $2.3 million in seed funding. Zhu said he built and pitched the private-market data platform from a bathroom stall at Carmel High School in Indiana, using a green screen and ring light for investor calls. The funding and origin story are documented in that report; Aviato’s current availability, pricing, revenue and customer scale were not independently established as of August 2026.
Aviato’s ambition was larger than the bathroom anecdote: turn fragmented private-company information into an analytical product for investors and other professional users. Whether that can displace any part of PitchBook depends on coverage, data accuracy, provenance and workflow depth—not on the founder’s age or unusual workspace.
The bathroom meetings were literal—but the most important story is the data product
TechCrunch reported that Zhu took meetings from a stall in his Carmel, Indiana, high school bathroom. He reportedly used a green screen, a ring light and excuses to leave class. Eric Bahn of Hustle Fund recalled meeting Zhu when Zhu was 14; Bahn said Zhu had claimed he pretended to have diarrhea to make time for a call. These details are attributed accounts in the July 22, 2024 report, not independently documented video evidence.
TechCrunch also reported that Zhu was eventually kicked out of school. By the time of publication, he had moved to San Francisco and was completing high school online. “Emerging from stealth” meant Aviato was publicly explaining its product and financing after operating with limited public visibility. It did not establish product-market fit, profitability, data accuracy or a large user base.
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TechCrunch’s July 22, 2024 report is the source for the bathroom account, funding, team and early-customer claims.
What Aviato was designed to do
Aviato was described as a database and analytics layer for private companies and the people who invest in them. The basic problem is that private-market information is scattered across announcements, filings, recruiting signals, company websites, investor networks and proprietary spreadsheets. Zhu said investment firms often spend heavily building internal databases to organize that information.
The reported product categories included:
- Funding rounds and related company activity
- Company headcount
- Company credit-card revenue signals
- Employee vesting schedules
- Where highly sought-after engineers are working
That proposition differs from a simple company directory. An analytical product must connect entities, normalize events, show history and explain how a signal was obtained. Revenue proxies, employee movement and vesting information can be useful, but they are also sensitive, difficult to verify and prone to becoming stale.
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How Eric Zhu reached the idea
According to TechCrunch, Zhu became interested in startups and venture capital during the pandemic through Discord communities he joined at 13. He had previously founded Esocial, described as a digital platform for schools, which was reportedly acquired about 10 months after launch. He later joined Bachmanity Capital, an early-stage investment firm.
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That path helps explain Aviato’s focus: Zhu had exposure both to building a company and to the information investors use to find and assess companies. He also said Aviato was inspired in part by SignalFire’s internal database and that the team worked with SignalFire founder Walter Kortschak while developing the product.
The $2.3 million seed round
TechCrunch reported that Aviato had raised $2.3 million in seed funding by July 2024. Named institutional investors included 8VC, Soma Capital and SoftBank, along with other unnamed participants. The report did not identify a lead investor, valuation, ownership terms, precise closing date or whether the figure represented one closing or cumulative financing.
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Bahn reportedly made a separate personal investment of $3,000 several years earlier. That check is distinct from the reported seed total. A financing announcement demonstrates investor backing and gives a company resources to build; it does not by itself demonstrate recurring revenue, retention or product-market fit.
Founding team and reported early customers
Team
- Eric Zhu: founder.
- David Razavi: co-founder and chief operating officer; TechCrunch described him as the former CTO of LowerMyBills and a product lead at LendingTree.
- Harrison Kessel: chief technology officer; previously the third employee at Sequoia-backed Zeet, where he worked on data infrastructure.
The report did not disclose ownership splits, total employee count or later team changes.
Customers cited in 2024
Zhu cited New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Republic Capital and 8VC as customers. The report did not say whether these were paying customers, pilots, strategic users or investor relationships, and it disclosed no contract values, seat counts, retention or renewal rates. They should therefore be described as reported customers, not evidence of broad commercial adoption.
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Aviato versus Crunchbase and PitchBook
Zhu’s stated ambition was eventually to replace PitchBook and sell to everyone working with private markets. That is an ambition, not a demonstrated outcome. PitchBook and Crunchbase are not interchangeable: their coverage, buyers and workflows differ materially.
| Dimension | Aviato (2024 reporting) | Crunchbase | PitchBook |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stated focus | Analytics over private-market data | Startup and company intelligence | Institutional private-capital intelligence |
| Typical buyer | VC, PE and other private-market users | Founders, sales, business development and lighter research teams | VC, PE, investment banking, corporate development and LP teams |
| Pricing evidence | Not verified | G2 listed Pro at $99 monthly or $588 annually for one user on April 9, 2026; confirm terms with Crunchbase | Request-based; varies by seats, firm type and offerings |
| Core question | Can its proprietary signals be trusted and maintained? | Is it sufficient for discovery and prospecting? | Is its institutional depth justified for diligence? |
| Main caveat | Current availability and scale are not established | Depth and verification vary by workflow | Cost and enterprise sales process |
See PitchBook’s comparison of PitchBook and Crunchbase, PitchBook Desktop’s product description and PitchBook’s pricing page. The third-party Crunchbase price signal is listed at G2; buyers should verify current terms at Crunchbase.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What a serious buyer would need to verify
Aviato’s value would depend on more than an attractive interface or unusual founder story. Before relying on it for investment, recruiting or corporate-development decisions, a buyer would need answers in six areas:
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- Coverage: company types, regions, early-stage depth, historical records and venture, private-equity, M&A and debt coverage.
- Freshness: how quickly rounds, hiring and layoffs appear, and whether updates are automated, manually checked or user submitted.
- Provenance: source citations, confidence indicators, correction procedures and auditability.
- Analytical depth: valuation and deal terms, investor relationships, comparable companies and the methodology behind revenue or talent signals.
- Workflow: CRM and API integrations, exports, alerts, collaboration, permissions and presentation support.
- Privacy and compliance: lawful collection and correction or deletion processes for employee-level and financial information.
Common data-business failure modes include funding rounds recorded before final terms are confirmed, headcount estimates that miss rapid layoffs, revenue estimates mistaken for audited figures, duplicate or renamed companies and incorrect investor associations caused by syndicates, SPVs or secondary transactions.
What remains unproven after the 2024 announcement
The available evidence does not establish Aviato’s current operating status, product availability, pricing, revenue, customer count, retention, data accuracy or follow-on funding as of August 2026. Eric Zhu’s personal website lists Aviato in his biography, but that alone does not verify those operating metrics.
Nor does the evidence show that Aviato can replace PitchBook for institutional users. A credible replacement would need broad and maintained coverage, research and benchmarking, transaction and fund workflows, dependable provenance, security and support. Aviato may have been aiming at an analytical gap; the public record cited here does not prove it closed that gap at scale.
The useful lesson for founders and investors
The bathroom story shows that a very young founder could reach investors and build a team before finishing traditional high school. The business lesson is less theatrical: private-market data is expensive to collect, verify and maintain, and customers pay for dependable decisions rather than novelty. A founder narrative can open the first meeting; coverage, accuracy, transparency and workflow value determine whether a data company earns durable trust.
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