A rapidly growing AI startup has landed two recent Lawrence University graduates on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Education list.
CEO Alec Nguyen ’23 and Chief Technology Officer Austin “Hung” Nguyen ’23 began exploring the idea for Afforai, an AI-powered citation manager, during their senior year at Lawrence. They then secured an investment of $100,000 from Sputnik ATX, an Austin, Texas-based venture capital fund, three months after graduating. Since then, Afforai, now based in Austin, has raised more than $1 million in funding and estimates 2024 revenue of $1.5 million. More than 100,000 researchers, writers, and students are using Afforai, an AI tool that helps users manage references, conduct literature reviews, annotate files, take notes, and write papers.
Landing on the prestigious Forbes list a year and a half after graduation is affirmation that the leap of faith in launching Afforai is paying off, Alec Nguyen said.
“I knew we were on to something big right from the beginning and it’s an amazing validation by getting featured on the list,” he said. “It was even more surprising when I found out the judges for the Forbes list consisted of the CEO of Common App and a co-founder of Grammarly. These are two people running incredible companies and they acknowledged Afforai. This gave me even more motivation to take Afforai to the next level in 2025.”
Alec was born in Vietnam and spent much of his life in Japan before coming to the United States to study economics and data science at Lawrence. He and Austin, a student from Vietnam who was studying economics and computer science, met during their first year on campus and developed a tight friendship. Both were involved in Lawrence's Innovation & Entrepreneurship program, which now features a business and entrepreneurship major and led to the creation of the newly opened Business and Entrepreneurship Center in Fox Commons.
As AI technology has advanced, its relationship with higher education has often been fraught with tension. Alec mentioned that he and Austin experienced this tension firsthand during their time as students at Lawrence while developing their initial concept.
Alec and Austin initially conceived the idea for Afforai during their senior year, planning to enter the annual Launch LU business startup pitch competition hosted by the Innovation and Entrepreneurship department. However, due to the university's stance on AI technology at the time, the Afforai pitch was not allowed, and they instead entered a different business pitch. Undeterred, the duo believed in their vision and worked to secure a wild card spot for Afforai in The Pitch, a regional competition featuring startup ideas from students at universities across northeast Wisconsin. Although Afforai didn’t place in the top three, the experience solidified their commitment to the dream.
“We lost, but we used all of that experience as motivation to continue building Afforai,” Alec said.
Since that time, those who were initially hesitant about Afforai have reached out to acknowledge the startup's success and discuss ways to support student business ideas within Lawrence's business and entrepreneurship studies.
"That means a great deal," Alec said, highlighting the progress made with the business and entrepreneurship major and the new Business and Entrepreneurship Center as important steps forward, learning from their experience with Afforai. “You never know what an idea could become. To me, Afforai is a life-changing idea, giving me financial freedom to accomplish what I want in life.”
It’s been a wild ride from graduating in June 2023 to making the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in late 2024. There’s more to come.
“We’re aiming to grow even more in 2025,” Alec said.
