Sharath Kuruganty is a serial entrepreneur, community builder, and angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Holder of an O-1/EB-1A 'Alien of Extraordinary Ability' visa, he has founded and exited two SaaS startups, is the #1 hunter on Product Hunt with 140+ launches, hosts 'The Undefeated Underdogs' podcast, and is currently building GuestLab.ai - an AI-powered research assistant for podcast hosts. Known for his 'build in public' philosophy, he grew from 200 to 22,000+ Twitter followers and advocates that no-code tools are a superpower for aspiring founders.
Abhay Singhal co-founded InMobi in 2007 from a shared Mumbai apartment with three IIT Kanpur classmates, and helped build it into India's first unicorn and the world's largest independent mobile advertising platform - reaching 1.3 billion people across 190+ countries. As CEO of InMobi Advertising, he now leads a platform serving 80 billion daily impressions, while InMobi prepares for a 2026 IPO targeting a $4-5 billion valuation. An angel investor in Razorpay, Bright Money, and Goldcast, Singhal is known for betting on mobile-first futures before anyone else did.
Clint Sharp is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cribl, a data infrastructure company valued at $3.5 billion that helps Fortune 500 enterprises route, filter, and control their telemetry data at scale. Before building Cribl, he spent five years as Senior Director of Product Management at Splunk, where he and his co-founders identified the problem that would become Cribl's founding mission: data volumes were exploding, budgets were not, and enterprises needed a vendor-agnostic way to manage what goes where. Under Sharp's leadership, Cribl grew from a 2017 idea to more than $200M in ARR, serving 43 Fortune 100 companies - all while he also briefly served as interim Chief Revenue Officer during a pivotal growth moment.
Edith Harbaugh is the CEO and co-founder of LaunchDarkly, the leading feature management platform trusted by over 5,500 organizations including 25% of Fortune 500 companies. She helped pioneer the feature flag category in 2014, scaling the company to $100M ARR, raising over $330M in venture capital, and building infrastructure that evaluates 45 trillion feature flags daily. A Harvey Mudd engineering alumna, patent holder, ultramarathoner, and co-host of the 'To Be Continuous' podcast, Harbaugh returned as CEO in 2025 to lead LaunchDarkly into the generative AI era.
Mahmoud Abdelkader is the Egyptian-American co-founder of Very Good Security (VGS), a San Francisco-based data security platform that raised $105 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, and Visa. Born near the Suez Canal and raised in Brooklyn, he built high-frequency trading systems at Wachovia, was employee #4 at Milo.com before its $75M eBay acquisition, then co-founded Balanced Payments through Y Combinator (W11) before founding VGS in 2016. VGS pioneered the 'Zero Data' category of data security as a service, serving 700+ customers including Fortune 100 companies. He stepped down as CEO in late 2022 and now invests in fintech companies including Ramp, Vercel, Alloy, Mercury, and Stytch while experimenting with AI.
Manu Sharma is the CEO and Co-founder of Labelbox, the leading AI data infrastructure platform that powers training data pipelines for frontier AI models. Born in Roorkee, India, he studied aerospace engineering at Embry-Riddle and Stanford before building CoPilot at DroneDeploy and leading data analytics at Planet Labs. In 2018, he co-founded Labelbox with former colleagues Brian Rieger and Daniel Rasmuson, raising $188.9M through a Series D led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Labelbox now serves as the command center for AI teams building and scaling production machine learning systems, from annotation and RLHF to evals and synthetic data generation.
Melody McCloskey is the founder and CEO of StyleSeat, the largest online marketplace for beauty, grooming, and wellness services, connecting over 350,000 independent beauty professionals with 10 million+ consumers across the United States. She co-founded StyleSeat in 2011 alongside Dan Levine, bootstrapped the company for 18 months before raising $40.7 million in venture funding, and has helped power over 200 million appointments while generating $12+ billion in total revenue for small businesses. A San Francisco native who studied French and International Relations at UC Davis, McCloskey built StyleSeat out of her own frustration with booking beauty appointments, turning a personal pain point into a platform that fundamentally reshaped how independent beauty professionals run their businesses. She is also an angel investor and Cleo Capital scout, focused on backing female-led startups at the pre-seed through Series A stages.
Dr. Mohamed Mazen Batterjee is the Co-Founder, CCO, and investor behind Aumet, an AI-first procurement operating system reshaping pharmaceutical supply chains across the Middle East. A scion of one of Saudi Arabia's oldest pharma dynasties, he parlayed a DBA from IE Business School and 15+ years running Batterjee Pharmaceuticals into co-founding a platform that now connects 12,000+ pharmacies, 1,000+ suppliers, and has processed over $1 billion in GMV. Aumet closed a $12M Series A in May 2026, bringing total funding to $21.84M.
Nick Haase is co-founder of MaintainX, the AI-powered CMMS and connected worker platform that reached a $2.5B valuation after its $150M Series D in July 2025. Leading go-to-market strategy, Haase has helped grow MaintainX to 11,000+ enterprise customers across manufacturing, food & beverage, and facilities — while separately angel-investing in 40+ startups including Anduril, Hadrian, and Figure. A former mobile marketing founder turned industrial software builder, he's spent years on factory floors helping maintenance teams ditch paper checklists and embrace digital workflows.
Nikki Pechet is the Co-Founder and CEO of Homebound, a tech-enabled homebuilder she launched in 2018 after wildfires devastated thousands of homes in Northern California. A veteran of Bain & Company and Thumbtack, she has built Homebound into a platform that digitizes every step of construction — from custom home design to permitting to build tracking — and has raised over $400 million in equity and real estate capital. She closed her Series A days after giving birth to her third child and has expanded Homebound across California, Colorado, Texas, and Florida, with aspirations to become the Amazon of homes.
Punit Singh Soni is the founder and CEO of Suki, the ambient clinical intelligence platform that lets doctors spend more time with patients and less time typing into electronic health records. A product veteran who helped ship the Moto X and rebuild Flipkart's consumer experience, Soni founded Suki in 2017 on a single thesis - 'AI is the new UI' - before that phrase became a conference staple. Suki now serves 350+ health systems across the US, has raised $255 million in total funding, and helps clinicians complete notes 72% faster. Soni was educated at NIT Kurukshetra, the University of Wyoming, and Wharton, and has lived at the intersection of big tech, emerging markets, and healthcare for over two decades.
Shreesha Ramdas is the CEO and Co-Founder of Lumber (LumberFi Inc.), an AI-first construction workforce management platform that automates payroll, time tracking, HR, safety, and compliance for specialty contractors. A serial entrepreneur who previously co-founded Strikedeck (acquired by Medallia) and LeadFormix (acquired by SAP/CallidusCloud), Ramdas deliberately pivoted from serving Silicon Valley to digitizing one of the most labor-intensive and underserved industries in America. Under his leadership, Lumber raised $21M in total funding, acquired BuilderFax, and is building autonomous AI agents to handle everything from prevailing wage audits to paper timecard digitization.
Tobenna Arodiogbu is the co-founder and CEO of CloudTrucks, a San Francisco-based technology platform that gives independent truck drivers and owner-operators an all-in-one digital toolkit - from instant non-recourse payments and load booking to compliance management and business analytics. Born in Enugu, Nigeria, Arodiogbu previously co-founded Scotty Labs, an autonomous vehicle remote-operations startup that was acquired by DoorDash in 2019. CloudTrucks has raised over $141 million, including a $115 million Series B at an $850 million valuation led by Tiger Global and Menlo Ventures, making it one of the most well-funded platforms serving the backbone of American freight.
Finbarr Taylor is a Scottish-born software engineer turned startup founder and investor, best known for co-founding Shogun, an e-commerce page builder platform that raised $115M and reached a $507.5M valuation. After nearly 11 years building Shogun - including roughly 8 as CEO - he transitioned to a board role in early 2026 and rejoined Y Combinator as a Visiting Partner. A prolific angel investor with 60+ portfolio companies including Deel and Fathom Video, Taylor is now a vocal advocate for lean, AI-enabled teams and the rise of what he calls 'nanocorns' - small but highly efficient companies capable of billion-dollar outcomes.
Vidit Jain is the co-founder of LocoNav, a full-stack AI-powered fleet management platform serving 500,000+ vehicle owners across 50+ countries. A mechanical-engineer-turned-software-builder, he pivoted from early-stage stints at ClearTax and Bizzy to co-found LocoNav in 2016 alongside Shridhar Gupta. The company has raised $47 million (including a $37M Series B in 2021) and tracks over 5 million vehicles globally, positioning itself as the emerging-market answer to Samsara. Vidit also angel-invests in startups and serves on one board.
Zaid Rahman is the founder and CEO of Flex, an AI-native private bank and finance super app targeting mid-market business owners with $3M-$100M in revenue. A Thiel Fellow who left Columbia University to build companies, he previously founded Volley (an AI knowledge startup backed by JPMorgan and Zuckerberg Ventures) and an EdTech platform that was acquired. Inspired by watching his father's Dubai construction business nearly collapse due to a payment default, he co-founded Flex in 2022 to build the all-in-one financial platform that mid-market owners never had. Flex has raised $490.5M in total funding, reached $3B in annualized TPV, and became the first US fintech to launch a Visa Infinite Business credit card.
Elad Gil is a Silicon Valley polymath - biologist-turned-Googler-turned-Twitter VP-turned-solo venture capitalist - who has backed 40+ unicorns including Airbnb, Stripe, Coinbase, Pinterest, and OpenAI. Managing $3+ billion as one of the largest solo GPs in venture history, he also co-founded Color Genomics, wrote the 'High Growth Handbook' (published by Stripe Press), and co-hosts the No Priors AI podcast with Sarah Guo. His blog (Elad Blog) reaches tens of thousands of readers on startups, AI, and longevity.
Tim Ferriss is a five-time #1 New York Times bestselling author, host of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast (1 billion+ downloads), early-stage investor in Uber, Facebook, Shopify, Duolingo, and 50+ companies, and founder of the Saisei Foundation funding psychedelic research. Known for popularizing 'lifestyle design' with The 4-Hour Workweek, he is also a Guinness World Record holder in tango, a national kickboxing champion, and a polyglot who speaks five languages.
Gagan Palrecha is a seasoned technology entrepreneur, executive, and investor with over two decades of experience spanning early internet infrastructure, consumer tech, blockchain, and fiber optic networking. Currently CEO of Stealth, a Los Angeles-based fiber internet provider that has raised $22.8M in funding, Gagan has held senior roles at Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Getaround, and NFTSTAR, while also serving as COO at RLY Network Association. A Y Combinator alumnus (2010) and General Partner at Palrecha Capital with 36+ portfolio companies, he brings an engineering foundation from Loudcloud - the legendary cloud infrastructure startup co-founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz - to every venture he touches.
Jeff Wang is the CEO of Windsurf, an AI-powered coding assistant that was acquired by Cognition (makers of Devin) in July 2025. Previously Windsurf's Head of Business, Jeff stepped into the CEO role during a chaotic week in which the company's founders departed to Google and a $3B OpenAI acquisition fell through. Working through a single frantic weekend, he negotiated a new deal with Cognition that protected all 250 employees. A former engineer who detoured through Cisco and Salesforce before betting his career on early-stage AI startups, Jeff is also a General Partner at RNR Capital and co-founder of RocketFuel Education.
Ling Xiao is the CEO of Ruvixx, Inc., a San Francisco-based SaaS platform helping enterprise brands protect intellectual property, automate license compliance, and convert market opportunities into revenue. A serial entrepreneur with deep roots in Silicon Valley, he co-founded Playdom - the social gaming company acquired by Disney in 2010 for up to $763 million - and later co-founded GGWP, an AI-powered platform tackling toxicity in online gaming. Trained in electrical engineering at UC Berkeley and computer science at Stanford, Xiao brings a rare combination of engineering rigor, product instinct, and entrepreneurial range that has taken him from Google's data teams to Disney's exec suite to the frontier of brand intelligence.
Michael Buckley is the Chairman and CEO of Be My Eyes, the world's largest digital volunteer organization connecting blind and low-vision users with sighted volunteers via live video calls. A communications veteran who spent 12 years at Brunswick Group and three years as Facebook's VP of Global Business Communications, Buckley pivoted to mission-driven tech when he joined Be My Eyes in December 2022. Under his leadership, Be My Eyes launched Be My AI (powered by GPT-4), which TIME named one of the Best Inventions of 2023, and scaled the platform to over 1 million blind and low-vision users supported by 6.7 million volunteers worldwide. He is also co-founder and chairman of Ocean's Halo, a seaweed-based natural foods company, and an active angel investor.
Rakesh Vaddadi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Beacon.li, a Milpitas-based AI orchestration platform that automates enterprise software implementation - from configuration and testing to deployment and hypercare support. A BITS Pilani computer science alumnus and serial entrepreneur, Rakesh previously co-founded WINDO (an Instagram commerce platform used by 200,000+ sellers in 144 countries) and Gear6 (a bike maintenance startup). At Beacon.li, he is tackling one of enterprise software's biggest blind spots: the gap between a signed contract and a successful go-live, using AI agents that learn through the UI without any backend access. The company raised a $7M Series A in March 2025 led by Sorin Investments.
Susan Hobbs is the Global Operations Chief of Staff to the CEO at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, and a portfolio of open-source web infrastructure. A veteran Silicon Valley operator who started as a public school teacher, she has spent two decades at the intersection of technology, media, and startups - as first hire at acquired companies (Codian, CoTweet), programming architect behind TechCrunch Disrupt, a partner at CrunchFund, and an operations leader at Cloudflare before landing at Automattic. An active angel investor, board member, and arts patron, she brings rare cross-functional range to high-stakes organizational roles.
Jean-Denis Greze is the Co-Founder and CEO of Town, an AI-powered tax platform for small businesses that raised an $18M seed round led by First Round Capital in March 2025. Previously, he served as CTO of Plaid, where he scaled the engineering team from 20 to 350 people, and before that as Director of Engineering at Dropbox. A Columbia CS grad and Harvard Law JD, he brings an unusually cross-disciplinary approach to building technology companies at the intersection of finance, law, and software.
Kanav Hasija is Co-Founder and CEO of MeltPlan, an AI-native preconstruction planning platform backed by Bessemer Venture Partners. A serial entrepreneur who co-built Innovaccer into a $3.2B healthcare data unicorn, he now applies the same data-platform playbook to construction — where fragmented planning and late-stage surprises cost billions annually. MeltPlan's tools (Melt Code, Melt Takeoff) bring AI-powered code compliance and quantity estimation to architects, contractors, and owners before the first shovel breaks ground.
Dan Ashton is the CEO and Co-Founder of Brain Co., a San Francisco-based AI company that builds applied intelligence platforms for the world's most complex institutions - from government permit offices to hospital systems. He brought his AI startup Serene AI into Brain Co.'s orbit and now leads a company backed by $30M in Series A funding from Elad Gil, Affinity Partners, Patrick Collison, Reid Hoffman, and Andrej Karpathy. Before Brain Co., he was an early operator at three unicorns - Opendoor, Faire, and Clubhouse - and a McKinsey consultant before that. Brain Co. has already deployed AI that unlocks $375M annually in permitting value and mitigated $100M+ in supply chain losses.
Jeff Seibert is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor best known as co-founder and CEO of Digits, the world's first AI-native accounting platform, and previously co-founder and CEO of Crashlytics — the mobile crash reporting platform acquired by Twitter for over $100 million just 14 months after founding. A Stanford computer science graduate who taught himself to code at 12, Seibert also served as Twitter's Head of Consumer Product, appeared in the Emmy-winning Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, and has made 100+ angel investments. He is based in San Francisco, California.
Jesse Zhang is the 28-year-old co-founder and CEO of Decagon, a San Francisco-based enterprise AI company valued at $4.5 billion that builds autonomous AI agents for customer service. A Harvard Computer Science graduate who sold his first startup Lowkey to Niantic, Zhang pivoted to enterprise AI in 2023 when GPT-4 arrived, spending months in customer discovery interviews before writing a single line of code. In under two years, he scaled Decagon from stealth to unicorn status, raised $481M total, landed clients like Duolingo, Notion, Hertz, and Deutsche Telekom, and made Forbes 30 Under 30. He is also a Grandmaster-ranked Teamfight Tactics player, a competition math problem author, and an angel investor in 20+ startups.
Prabhav Jain is the CEO of 11x, a San Francisco-based AI company building autonomous digital workers for revenue teams, backed by a16z with $102M raised. A three-time founder and MIT CS alumnus, he sold his second company CommonLounge to Brex in 2020, rose to Head of Engineering for Financial Services there, then joined 11x as CTO in 2024 before stepping up to CEO in May 2025. He is also an angel investor in 45+ companies and an a16z Scout.