According to @alex_prompter on Twitter, AI startups do not need venture capital funding to achieve billion-dollar success. Andrew Filev, founder of Wrike, built his company with minimal external investment—raising only $27 million after being ignored by VCs for six years. Despite lacking connections to Stanford or Google, Filev bootstrapped Wrike and eventually sold it for $2.25 billion. This case demonstrates that AI entrepreneurs can leverage lean operations, product-driven growth, and direct customer engagement to scale effectively and achieve significant exits without heavy reliance on venture funding (source: https://x.com/alex_prompter/status/2013256002225803274). This trend opens new opportunities for AI founders to pursue alternative growth strategies and retain more equity, emphasizing the importance of resilient business models and market-driven product development.