I help founders, startups and brands reimagine how they build their products and tell their stories.
A great product and a great story are the same piece of work. Most founders have a vision that's far better than what they've shipped. My work is closing that gap, with a process that designs the product and the story as one, using AI to widen what's possible and human taste to decide what's right. This is venture design for the AI era.
Untold the ideas, products and brands whose stories are yet to be told.
Venture design for the AI era brings together four disciplines that are usually split between several hires and agencies. I work with founders and leadership teams as one senior partner across all of them.
The future belongs to master generalists. With AI doing more of the production, a smaller team of people with broader range can do the work of a much larger one. I help companies design for that: fewer handoffs, fewer silos, and people who can carry an idea from strategy to the finished thing.
Where product and narrative meet.
Your first product, first story and first brand, built together so each one tells the other what it ought to be.
A lot of features, no single vision.
For leaders who already know their product, brand, creative and marketing teams have drifted apart, and want one vision across all of them so the company can lead its category.
Great teams, old ways of working.
For brands whose creative and product teams are strong and whose ways of working predate AI. I help those teams build their own frameworks into AI tools, so the work gets faster and wider while their people keep making the calls.
At Gold Front, I taught AI our narrative formulas. It generates hundreds of directions, and my partner Josh and I curate the few worth making.
I treat AI like a capable young creative on the team. When generating almost anything is effortless, the scarce skill is reduction: the taste and judgment to cut every possible option down to the one right decision, wherever the good idea came from.
It starts before the AI does, with the brief: who it is for, what the hook is, why you. Ask AI for a story and you'll get a decent one. Ask the right questions first and you get something great.
Curation, alchemyI'm Benjamin White. I began as an editor and a writer, and storytelling still runs through everything I do. Some of what I built was my own idea; the rest was helping visionary founders execute theirs. I've lived in Lisbon since 2021.
BA, Brown University. Fluent in Portuguese. Multichannel News 40 Under 40.
As a leader at fuseproject, Elephant and Gold Front, and on my own.
Consumer and brandsApple, Beats, Samsung, Lululemon, L'Oréal, Chevron, Kia, Target
MediaMTV, FX Networks, AOL, Condé Nast, BMG
FintechPayPal, Qapital, Backbase
AI and softwareVSCO, Luma Health, Databook, Keyfactor, LiveAction, Buildots, Supernal, Sully.ai, Staris, Vendoroo
| Year | Company | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 21212 | Co-founder and partner. Brazil's first startup accelerator. |
| 2011–14 | 21212 portfolio | Investor, through the fund. 42 companies, listed below. |
| 2015– | Audos, Galore, House Numbers, Buk | Direct investor, through Untold. |
Access Club, Aentropico, Ainda Tem, Bidcorp/Estoks, Bloompa, Brandship, Craques, Easyaula, GoBooks, Helpin, Igluu, Instaquadros, iTrip, MaxMilhas, Memed, Monograme, Oficialize, Orama, Pagpop, PebMed (Afya), ResolveAí, Selo Reserva, Simpply, Site Sustentável, Treebos, VetSmart, Videolog, WeDemand, WeDoLogos, Wegoout, Xjobs, ZeroPaper (Intuit), Zona Universitária
Companies in darker type have exited. ZeroPaper's sale to Intuit was the first significant exit by a Brazilian accelerator.
Based in Lisbon. Working with teams in Europe, the US and Latin America.