# Alexei Dunaway

> Alexei Dunaway is the founder and CEO of Pinnacle, a New York and Palo Alto based startup building Pascal, an AI performance and career coach that lives inside Slack, Teams, and Zoom. A Stanford GSB graduate and Fulbright Scholar, he spent five years building an entrepreneur accelerator in Kenya before running an executive coaching practice for venture-backed founders. He now wants to give every worker the kind of coaching that used to be reserved for the C-suite. Pinnacle raised a $2.5M seed round in March 2025 led by eLab Ventures.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at Pinnacle (Hey Pinnacle)
- **Organizations:** Pinnacle (Hey Pinnacle), Ongoza, upGrowth, Stanford Graduate School of Business, MIT D-Lab, Alchemist Accelerator, StartX
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** MSx Program (master's), Stanford Graduate School of Business, Undergraduate, graduated with honors, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Founder and CEO of Pinnacle, an AI coaching platform used by companies including HubSpot, Ripple, Verkada, Springboard, and Semgrep, Raised a $2.5M seed round in March 2025 led by eLab Ventures, Built the Ongoza accelerator in Kenya from scratch, raising over $2M and advising hundreds of entrepreneurs

## Career timeline

- **2013** — Named a Fulbright Scholar, supporting work in international development and social impact
- **2013-2018** — Built and led the Ongoza accelerator in Kenya as Executive Director, raising over $2M and advising hundreds of early-stage entrepreneurs over roughly five years
- **2018** — Named a GSBI Fellow and an MIT D-Lab Innovation Ecosystem Builder Fellow
- **2018-2022** — Studied at Stanford Graduate School of Business and ran a full-time executive coaching practice for Series A-D founders and executives
- **2022** — Founded Pinnacle to standardize and scale what he learned coaching, building an AI micro-learning and coaching platform
- **2025** — Pinnacle raised a $2.5M seed round led by eLab Ventures; launched Pascal, an AI performance and career coach embedded in Slack, Teams, and Zoom

## Achievements

- Founder and CEO of Pinnacle, an AI coaching platform used by companies including HubSpot, Ripple, Verkada, Springboard, and Semgrep
- Raised a $2.5M seed round in March 2025 led by eLab Ventures
- Built the Ongoza accelerator in Kenya from scratch, raising over $2M and advising hundreds of entrepreneurs
- Fulbright Scholar (2013)
- GSBI Fellow (2018) and MIT D-Lab Innovation Ecosystem Builder Fellow (2018)
- Graduated with honors from Stanford and completed the Stanford GSB MSx program
- Built a multi-year executive coaching practice for venture-backed founders and executives

## Latest updates

- **2025-03** — Pinnacle announced a $2.5M seed round led by eLab Ventures to make AI coaching available to all, anchored by its flagship AI coach Pascal.
- **2025-08** — Latest reported capital raise dated to August 2025; company headcount around 28 employees.

## Links

- Website: https://heypinnacle.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexei-dunaway/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/alexeidunaway
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjFaSP8WdD4

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/alexei-dunaway
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-25