# Michael Bajwa, CEO and Co-founder of Zaro: BREAKING: Zaro just raised $5.1m pre-seed Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754/michael-bajwa-ceo-and-co-founder-of-zaro-breaking-zaro-just-raised-5-1m-pre-seed Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754/michael-bajwa-ceo-and-co-founder-of-zaro-breaking-zaro-just-raised-5-1m-pre-seed.md Podcast: [Scaling Europe](https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754) Published: 2026-06-09T08:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scaling-europe/episodes/Michael-Bajwa--CEO-and-Co-founder-of-Zaro-BREAKING-Zaro-just-raised-5-1m-pre-seed-e3kg5ve Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/108a8a74c/podcast/play/121165230/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-5-8%2F425757421-44100-2-1a48ca9ba5118.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/scaling-europe-7780754/episodes/michael-bajwa-ceo-and-co-founder-of-zaro-breaking-zaro-just-raised-5-1m-pre-seed Duration seconds: 1207 ## Resource AI agents are becoming more capable, but most companies still rely on software built for a different era. Zaro just raised a $5.1 million pre-Seed round led by Cherry Ventures to build infrastructure designed specifically for the agentic era. Michael Bajwa is CEO and Co-founder of Zaro. Following the sale of Convergence to Salesforce, he believes enterprises have not yet had their ChatGPT moment, and that the next generation of software will be built around AI agents rather than traditional applications. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026 SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/ Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:14 - Zaro’s $5.1m pre-Seed round 2:47 - Lessons from Convergence and Salesforce 5:23 - Making AI agents accessible 8:54 - Coming out of stealth 11:11 - Creating a new category of software 13:25 - Compressing startup timelines 16:01 - Building a category-defining company 17:49 - Hiring battle-tested operators 19:15 - The future of AI-native software ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/scaling-europe-7780754/episodes/michael-bajwa-ceo-and-co-founder-of-zaro-breaking-zaro-just-raised-5-1m-pre-seed/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754/michael-bajwa-ceo-and-co-founder-of-zaro-breaking-zaro-just-raised-5-1m-pre-seed.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.