Meet Arrel, the Startup Founded by Three ASB Alumni

Arrel means “root” in Catalan, and it quickly felt fitting for the new AI startup founded by ASB alums Jan Rasmussen ’17, his brother Nil Rasmussen ’21, and their childhood friend Nick de la Guardia ’17. The trio’s friendship dates back to early school days, and the company focuses on strengthening a client’s roots, the core revenue operations everything else grows from.

For Jan and Nil, the name also honors their grandmother, who, as Jan put it, “did it in the 70s, with two kids, a day job and a landline.” “She is a big part of why.”

Getting here wasn’t really the plan. Five years ago, the three of them worked in entirely different fields. Jan and Nil lived in Australia, and Jan had landed a role at one of the industry's top go-to-market agencies, the kind of firm that handles anything a company needs to grow its revenue and visibility. As he learned the business, he brought Nick, then Nil, onto the team, and together they grew the agency significantly.

That agency split apart this past June. By then, Jan, Nil, and Nick had already been talking about starting something of their own, Arrel, which they launched in September. Arrel is a go-to-market growth studio (GTM), and the three have spent the past few months building it from scratch. They say what sets it apart is being AI-native: leveraging AI to run a process that keeps testing and iterating on itself, learning what works and what doesn’t so it can improve results for clients over time.

“It used to be Service as a Software,” Jan says of the old agency model, where clients paid for time and activity. “Now we sell an outcome by leveraging our technology.”

That shows up in who they choose to work with, too. Their previous agency mostly chased hyper-growth SaaS companies, a market that’s already full of agencies fighting for the same clients. Arrel is targeting industries that get far less attention: logistics, FMCG, industrials, robotics, and vertical SaaS, sectors that tend to be less developed in their approach to growth, and where there’s real room to help. Their initial offer centers on cold outbound. The team starts by identifying the customer personas a client wants to reach, then builds a more predictable revenue engine around them using a proprietary system they’re also developing for internal use.

Each of the three brings something different to the company. Nick has a technical background, spent four years at Morgan Stanley in Canada, and builds many of the internal systems that keep the team efficient. Jan is the commercial one, with five years in sales, and knows how to source leads, close deals, and maintain client relationships. Nil is a bit of both: he studied information technology in Sydney and worked at companies like Salesforce and PwC as an intern and later as a full-time employee, before taking on a more customer-facing role at the agency, building systems for clients and managing accounts. Nil and Jan focus on building those revenue systems for clients day to day, while Nick keeps things running on the internal side.

Jan says much of it traces back to ASB. “We really align with all the values that ASB instilled in us, in personal and professional development,” he says, “both preparing us for the real world and merging what we learned in our professional careers and what we learned from school.”

Jan and Nil are originally from the US and attended ASB from PK3 through 12th grade, aside from grades 5 and 9, which they spent in the UK while their father’s job took the family abroad. Nick, from Canada, was at ASB from PK3 through 9th grade. All three are digital nomads now, working on Arrel from wherever they're based.

Alumni who’d like to connect or learn more about Arrel can find the founders on LinkedIn: Jan Rasmussen, Nil Rasmussen, and Nick de la Guardia.