500-startups
(15)
Raymond Yip and the shop that began with a detour
He set out to build a marketplace in Hong Kong. A change of plan led Raymond Yip to co-found SHOPLINE - and began a career spent helping people get from an idea to something they can actually use.
Santiago Bibiloni and the price of one more revision
An Argentine agency founder learned how a busy business could quietly lose money. With COR, Santiago Bibiloni turned that lesson into software - and kept asking what creative work is worth.
Christine Tsai and the education of a risk-taker
Raised to seek security, Christine Tsai left Google to co-found 500 Startups. Her path to leading 500 Global runs through ballet, quiet leadership and a conviction that founders deserve a hearing far beyond Silicon Valley.
TJ Ross
TJ Ross is the co-founder and co-CEO of Splash Sports, a peer-to-peer sports gaming platform he built with Joel Milton by acquiring and merging established brands like RunYourPool and OfficeFootballPool into a single home for survivor pools, pick'em, one & done and tiers contests. The platform now serves more than two million players and 80,000 commissioners. A Bay Area native who grew up with sports at the center of family life, Ross studied finance and entrepreneurship at USC before working in technology investment banking at Raymond James and Houlihan Lokey, founding the maker marketplace 43Layers, and leading strategic partnerships at STRV. He describes his work as building products that gather people around shared passions, and treats community, authenticity and enjoying the journey as the real measures of success.
Raad Ahmed
Raad Ahmed is the founder and CEO of Lawtrades, a New York based marketplace that connects companies with freelance lawyers and paralegals. He started the company after law school with the idea that legal work should look less like a big-firm invoice and more like a product you can order on the internet. Lawtrades has raised roughly $12M in venture funding, employs a team of about 42, and runs on a global network of vetted legal talent. Ahmed is also the founder of LeanFi and an angel investor. He records music, makes videos, and skateboards on the side.
Bimohit Bawa
Bimohit Bawa is the co-founder and CEO of TrueCare24, a San Francisco-based health and wellness marketplace that connects families and employers with vetted nurses, caregivers, and clinicians for in-home care, telehealth, and on-site COVID-19 testing and vaccination. A software engineer by training - IIT Roorkee, a master's from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Berkeley Haas - Bawa spent nearly a decade building systems at Cisco and ServiceSource before joining TrueCare24 as its founding technical lead in 2015. He has since steered the company through 500 Startups' accelerator, a pivot into pandemic-era testing logistics, and a current chapter rebuilding senior care around AI and automation.
Dmitrii Pistolyako
Dmitrii Pistolyako is the co-founder and CEO of LinguaTrip, a San Francisco-based booking platform for language courses and study-abroad programs that has served more than 100,000 students from over 100 countries. A math-and-economics graduate from Saint Petersburg, he turned a free study-abroad consulting side hustle into a venture-backed company, surviving more than 50 investor rejections before becoming the only Russian startup in his 500 Startups batch. He also leads Fluent.Express and shares his playbook for building a company in the US through his Russian-language YouTube channel and online courses.
Domenica Obando
Domenica Obando is the Peruvian founder and CEO of Talently, a Latin American tech talent marketplace that vets, trains, and places software engineers and data scientists into roles at companies across the US and LATAM. After stints in an NGO, the public sector, and an English-learning startup called Andi, she pivoted into Talently when she noticed her customers were really developers chasing international jobs. Talently has connected thousands of engineers with hundreds of companies including PayPal, Walmart, Nubank, Mercado Libre and Rappi, and raised seed funding backed by 500 Startups and IDB Lab (BID Lab).
Asher Siddiqui
Asher Siddiqui is a General Partner at Sukna Ventures, a Riyadh-based early-stage venture fund backing software and data-infrastructure startups across MENA. He spent a decade running global M&A and corporate venture at Etisalat (around $15bn in deals), then joined 500 Startups as a partner and investment committee member before settling into the GP role at Sukna. He advises a constellation of funds from Palo Alto to Pakistan and splits time between the San Francisco Bay Area, Dubai, and Riyadh.
Santi Bibiloni
Santi Bibiloni is the Co-Founder and CEO of COR, an AI-powered project profitability platform built for creative agencies, consulting firms, and professional services. Born in Buenos Aires and now based in San Francisco, he bootstrapped his first agency Balloon Group to 400 clients across 12 countries before pivoting to solve the profitability problem he lived firsthand. COR has raised ~$7.9M, grown 9% month-over-month, and counts Ogilvy, BBDO, and McCann among clients in 38 countries — backed by unicorn founders and the board member who built DoubleClick.
Neha Khera
Neha Khera is a veteran early-stage investor with 13+ years in venture capital, known for co-founding 500 Startups Canada and generating a personal 20x track record. As General Partner at 2048 Ventures, she has led investments in 60+ companies including unicorns Applyboard and Mejuri. A self-described technologist, she holds an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Ivey, and has been a tireless advocate for women in STEM through initiatives like Girls in Tech Toronto and a TEDx Women conference.
Elizabeth Yin
Elizabeth Yin is a co-founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, the pre-seed venture firm she launched in 2017 with two Stanford dorm-mates. A former founder (LaunchBit, acquired by BuySellAds) and 500 Startups Partner, she invests in software startups within 48 hours of a first call, has built a portfolio of 375+ companies including unicorns Gamma, Webflow, and Boom Supersonic, and has made angel investing accessible to over 10,000 applicants across 50+ countries through Angel Squad — all while sporting a Twitter handle (@dunkhippo33) that honors her lifelong collection of stuffed hippos.
Sheel Mohnot
Sheel Mohnot is a San Francisco-based fintech investor and co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV), a $300M+ seed-stage fund backing fintech companies globally. A two-time fintech founder himself - having built and exited FeeFighters (acquired by Groupon, 2012) and Innovative Auctions - Sheel brings rare operator credibility to early-stage investing. He co-founded The Pitch podcast, co-leads BTV's The Mint accelerator, and is one of fintech's most-followed voices on Twitter/X with 150K+ followers. Known for his fintech-only thesis, global portfolio (33% outside US), and a Taco Bell metaverse wedding officiated by Kal Penn.
Matt Lerner
Matt Lerner is the founder and CEO of SYSTM, a growth coaching and accelerator program for seed-stage startups. A former PayPal GM who helped grow the SMB business from $800M to $10B+, and ex-500 Startups partner who ran the Distro Dojo growth program in London, he now works personally with up to 80 founders per year helping them find their growth levers. He is the author of 'Growth Levers and How to Find Them,' an international bestseller advocating that 10% of what startups try drives 90% of their growth.
Pankaj Jain
Pankaj Jain is the Founder and Managing Partner of Saka Ventures, a seed-stage VC fund based in New York City focused on Indian fintech, SaaS, and data-analytics startups targeting large global markets. A pioneer in India's startup ecosystem, he was a Partner at 500 Startups for four years, made early bets on unicorns like Innovaccer (533x) and ShipRocket (240x), co-founded HeadStart Network Foundation, and helped bring Startup Weekend to India before most Silicon Valley investors even knew the subcontinent's startup scene existed.