Malhar Patil is the Co-Founder and COO of Flam, a San Francisco- and Bengaluru-based AI-native mixed reality platform that lets brands deliver immersive, app-less 3D experiences via QR codes and links — powering campaigns for Google, Samsung, Emirates, and even Kamala Harris's US presidential run. A BITS Pilani chemical engineering graduate and Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 honoree (2022), Malhar pivoted from consulting (Oracle) and sports-wellness management (Stepathlon) to build one of India's most globally ambitious adtech startups, raising $22M in total funding including a $14M Series A led by RTP Global in May 2025.
Bridget Williams is Chief of Staff to the CEO at Squint, a San Francisco-based AI and augmented reality platform transforming how manufacturers digitize operational knowledge. Before joining Squint, she served in the Biden White House as Deputy Director of Presidential Scheduling, and held roles in political organizing and government scheduling. A University of Delaware graduate, she bridges the worlds of government operations and tech startups, bringing the precision of presidential logistics to one of industrial AI's fastest-growing companies.
Deepak Nagpal is the CEO of Audax Labs, a Bothell, Washington-based technology innovation company he has led since 2016. With a career spanning over two decades across NTT DATA, Capital One, and Interra Information Technologies, and an MBA from Oxford's Said Business School, he has built Audax Labs into a multi-practice consultancy operating across AR/VR/MR, AI, IoT, cloud migration, and data analytics - serving industries from automotive and healthcare to BFSI and government, with partnerships spanning Microsoft, Google, Amazon AWS, Hitachi Vantara, Oracle, and Rocket Software.
Neschae Fernando is the CEO of Zone24x7, a 22-year-old technology engineering company headquartered in San Jose, California, with a major hub in Sri Lanka. With a dual background in electrical engineering (MS and BS from UCLA) and enterprise IT delivery at Cisco, Fernando leads a 270-person team that sits at a rare intersection: companies capable of integrating hardware and software end-to-end. Under his leadership since June 2022, Zone24x7 has won seven industry awards in 2025 alone, including Gold at NBQSA and the IoT Technology of the Year Award, while expanding its AI, RFID, and cognitive vision platforms across 50+ enterprise clients globally.
Paul Kellenberger is the CEO and President of zSpace, Inc., a San Jose-based company that pioneered display-based augmented and virtual reality for education. Rather than strapping headsets onto students, zSpace built a 24-inch 3D screen with head-tracking and a haptic stylus - no goggles required. Under Kellenberger's leadership, zSpace expanded from zero revenue in career technical education to 50% of its pipeline in that segment, served over 2,400 U.S. schools, and took the company public on Nasdaq in December 2024 under ticker ZSPC. With more than 70 patents, research partnerships with NC State showing 40% better retention rates, and recent acquisitions of BlocksCAD and Second Avenue Learning, Kellenberger is pushing immersive learning into the mainstream of American education.
Barmak Heshmat is an optical physicist and entrepreneur who founded Brelyon, a San Mateo-based startup creating Ultra Reality displays that generate immersive panoramic virtual screens without any headset. A former MIT Media Lab research scientist and onetime head of optics at Meta's AR division, Heshmat ranked in the top 1% of Iran's national university entrance exam, earned a PhD in optoelectronics from the University of Victoria, filed 8 patents, published 20 journal papers, and now leads a company backed by Lockheed Martin Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, and Corning after raising $18.8M total - solving the fundamental problem of why no one wants to wear a computer on their face.
Jhanvi Shriram is the co-founder and CEO of Krikey AI, a San Francisco-based generative AI 3D animation platform that enables anyone to create professional-grade animations in minutes without prior technical experience. A Stanford BA and MBA graduate with an MFA from USC's Peter Stark Producing Program, Jhanvi previously worked at YouTube, JauntVR, and Participant Media before launching Krikey in 2016 with her sister Dr. Ketaki Shriram (CTO). Krikey has raised $22M, counts Reliance Jio, AWS Startups, T-Mobile Accelerator, and Thirty Five Ventures among its investors, and reached over 100,000 creators through integrations with Canva and Adobe Express. A Tribeca Film Festival-premiered documentary producer turned AI entrepreneur, Jhanvi sits at the intersection of creative storytelling and cutting-edge technology.
Elliott Spelman is the co-founder and CEO of Polycam, the world's most-used 3D imaging app with over 10 million downloads and nearly 100,000 paying customers. A Stanford-trained designer and creative technologist, Spelman built Polycam to make 3D capture as accessible as photography - describing it as the Kodak Brownie of spatial computing. After meeting co-founder Chris Heinrich at Ubiquity6, they launched Polycam in 2020, raising an $18M Series A in early 2024 backed by Left Lane Capital, Adobe Ventures, and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley. Today Polycam serves individuals across more than half the Fortune 500 and is pushing hard into AI-powered floor plans, generative 3D, and enterprise spatial workflows.
Diana Hu is a General Partner at Y Combinator, where she has conducted over 1,700 office hours advising portfolio companies now worth a combined $1.7 billion. A Chilean-born engineer of Chinese descent, she co-founded Escher Reality in 2016, built the infrastructure for cross-platform multi-user AR experiences through YC's S17 batch, and sold the company to Niantic (makers of Pokemon GO) in 2018. She then led Niantic's AR Platform engineering before transitioning to investing, becoming one of the rare founders-turned-top-tier-VCs with deep technical chops in augmented reality, computer vision, and machine learning.
Bobby Murphy is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat. A mathematical and computational science graduate from Stanford, Murphy has led the engineering vision behind one of the world's most influential social media platforms since 2011. Known as Snapchat's 'quiet genius,' he pioneered ephemeral messaging and has been instrumental in developing Snap's augmented reality innovations, including Spectacles AR glasses. Named to Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2014, Murphy became one of the world's youngest billionaires and remains a driving force in Snap's transformation into a comprehensive AR and AI company.
Evan Spiegel is the co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc., the company behind Snapchat, Spectacles, and Bitmoji. He built one of the few social platforms to meaningfully challenge Facebook by betting on ephemeral messaging, augmented reality, and the camera as the primary interface of human communication. At 26, he became the youngest CEO of a newly public major U.S. tech company. He turned down $3 billion from Mark Zuckerberg at 23. He holds dual American and French citizenship, is married to supermodel Miranda Kerr, and completed his Stanford degree six years after dropping out.