Skillshare is an online learning community where creatives learn by doing. Through tens of thousands of project-based video classes taught by working professionals - in illustration, design, photography, film, marketing, music and more - the New York-based platform turns a flat monthly subscription into access to a library built and taught by practitioners rather than academics. Founded in 2010, it has grown into one of the largest creative learning marketplaces in the world.
Sleep Reset is a San Francisco digital sleep clinic that brings the methods of an in-person sleep center to a phone. Built around Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), it pairs each user with a human sleep coach and a personalized, multi-week program instead of pills. Founded by serial entrepreneur Yunha Kim after her own years-long battle with insomnia and sleep apnea, the program was developed with researchers from Stanford, Yale and other institutions, and is used by thousands of people seeking a no-pill path to better sleep.
Studs is a New York-based ear piercing and earrings brand that pairs licensed, needle-based piercing studios with a large e-commerce and in-store catalog of flatback studs, hoops, huggies and clickers. Founded in 2019 by Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers, the company coined the idea of 'Earscaping' - curating a personalized stack of piercings and jewelry - and positions itself as a modern, hygienic alternative to mall piercing-gun kiosks and tattoo-shop counters. It operates a fleet of profitable studios across the U.S. alongside a direct-to-consumer online store.
Común is a New York-based digital bank built Spanish-first for immigrants in the United States. It offers an FDIC-insured checking account, a Visa debit card, low-cost cross-border remittances, Zelle access, and one of the largest cash-deposit networks in the country - all openable without a Social Security number. Founded in late 2021 by Mexican immigrants Andrés Santos and Abiel Gutiérrez, Común set out to fix the financial exclusion they experienced firsthand, and it has grown into one of the fastest-growing consumer fintechs serving the Latino community.
Neura Health is a virtual neurology clinic that gives the 145 million Americans living with neurological conditions fast access to board-certified neurologists, dedicated care coaches, and an app-based treatment plan. Founded in 2020 by Elizabeth Burstein and Sameer Madan, the company pairs telehealth video visits with always-on care navigation to cut the typical months-long wait for a neurologist down to about a week, treating headache and migraine, epilepsy, sleep disorders, concussion, stroke recovery, tremor, long COVID, and memory disorders.
MoEngage is an insights-led customer engagement platform that helps consumer brands unify customer data, surface AI-driven insights, and orchestrate personalized cross-channel campaigns across push, email, SMS, in-app, web, and WhatsApp. Used by more than 1,350 global brands, it combines analytics, segmentation, and journey automation in a single dashboard powered by its Sherpa and Merlin AI engines.
NeoLife International is a Santa Clara, California whole-food nutrition company founded in 1958 by Jerry Brassfield. For more than six decades it has built non-GMO supplements, weight-management products, skin care and earth-friendly home care that are sold through a network of independent distributors in over 50 countries. Its formulas are vetted by the NeoLife Scientific Advisory Board, founded in 1976 by toxicologist Arthur Furst, Ph.D. Today the founder's daughter, Kendra Brassfield, runs the company as CEO.
Study.com is a Mountain View-based online learning platform that breaks subjects into short, animated video lessons and college-credit-eligible courses. Founded in 2002 by Adrian Ridner and Ben Wilson, it now serves more than 30 million learners, teachers and working adults each month, with one of the largest catalogs of ACE-approved courses of any provider. Its mission is to make education accessible and affordable - especially for the underserved students its founder once was.
Wag! Group Co. is an American pet-care technology company whose app connects pet parents with a vetted network of independent dog walkers, sitters, trainers and drop-in caregivers across thousands of U.S. cities. Founded in 2015 and now publicly traded (Nasdaq: PET), Wag! has expanded from on-demand dog walks into a broader pet-services platform spanning wellness and pet insurance comparison, premium membership, and pet food and treats.
Allison Romano is Vice President of Xbox Digital Marketing and Media at Microsoft, based in New York. With over 15 years leading high-impact marketing and product teams across Microsoft, Google, American Express, and CLEAR, she has shaped how some of the world's biggest brands reach digital audiences. At Xbox, she oversees digital marketing and media strategy for one of the most recognized gaming brands on the planet, blending B2B and B2C expertise to drive growth at scale.
Mike Polner is VP of Product Marketing and GM of Next Gen Creators at Adobe, where he leads the Firefly generative AI business and oversees creative tools including Lightroom, Photoshop, and Premiere. With over 20 years in marketing and product leadership, he has a track record of scaling consumer businesses - growing Uber Eats from $100M to $50B+ GMV and helping Cameo reach a $1B valuation. A former VP of Marketing at Discord and product marketing leader at Cameo and Uber Eats, Polner is at the center of Adobe's push to make AI-powered creativity accessible to the next generation of creators.
Patrick Brown is SVP of Global Marketing at Adobe, leading growth, analytics, media, and marketing engineering across the company's global B2B and B2C operations. He oversees Adobe's Digital Economy Index — a research engine that tracks a trillion e-commerce transactions across 100 million SKUs — and has emerged as one of the most data-forward voices in enterprise marketing. Based in San Jose, California, Brown combines an MBA from Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business with deep experience in technology, finance, and consumer goods sectors.
HealthTap is a Sunnyvale-based digital health company that connects patients with board-certified physicians 24/7 through video, phone, and text consultations. Founded in 2010, it operates a platform of 105,000 doctors across 141 specialties serving 23 million monthly members. The company pairs AI-powered symptom checking with live clinical consultations, offering affordable virtual primary and urgent care via subscription or per-visit pricing. Recent partnerships with Samsung Health, Eli Lilly's LillyDirect, and Commure signal a shift toward deep integration with major consumer and clinical platforms.
Higgsfield AI is a San Francisco-based generative AI company that builds professional video and image creation tools for creators, marketers, and enterprise teams. Founded in October 2023 by former Snap executive Alex Mashrabov, the platform offers Cinema Studio, Lip-Sync Studio, and a suite of AI models (Sora 2, Kling 3.0, Veo 3.1) for producing cinematic-quality content. The company reached $200M annualized revenue run rate within 9 months of launch, achieved unicorn status at a $1.3B valuation in January 2026 after raising $80M in a Series A extension led by Accel, and hosts 25 million users across 240+ countries generating 4.5 million videos per day.
Midi Health is a national virtual care clinic built specifically for women in perimenopause, menopause, and the long midlife stretch that mainstream medicine has historically ignored. Founded by Joanna Strober after her own frustrating search for symptom relief, Midi pairs clinicians trained in menopause medicine with an insurance-covered telehealth platform that treats hot flashes, sleep problems, weight changes, mood swings, and long-term hormone health. Now valued above $1 billion after a $100M Series D in February 2026, Midi serves more than 230,000 patients across all 50 states.
OpenArt AI is a San Francisco-based AI creative platform founded in 2022 by former Google engineers Coco Mao and John Qiao. The platform aggregates 100+ AI models - including DALL-E 3, Stable Diffusion, Google Veo 3, Kling, and Sora - under a single interface, letting creators generate images, videos, music, and 3D environments without switching tools. From hobbyists making tabletop RPG art to agencies building brand-consistent content at scale, OpenArt serves roughly 8 million monthly active users. The company reached $70M+ ARR in 2025 with a 20-person team, then closed a $30M Series A led by Canaan Partners in January 2026.
Bask Gill is the Co-Founder of Power (withpower.com), a San Francisco-based clinical trial platform that uses AI to match patients with clinical trials. After watching his father struggle to navigate a broken clinical trial discovery system following a multiple myeloma diagnosis, Bask co-founded Power in May 2021 alongside Brandon Li. The platform has connected over 600,000 patients to trials across 10,000+ medical conditions, with 40% being non-white patients - a deliberate focus on diversity and access. Power has raised $19M in funding including a $12M Series A in early 2024, and grown to 230 employees.
Chris Boudreaux is a fintech professional and co-founder associated with Cherry (withcherry.com), a San Francisco-based healthcare financing platform trusted by over 60,000 medical providers across the United States. Cherry enables patients to access flexible, interest-free payment plans for elective medical procedures - dental, plastic surgery, medspas, and veterinary care - while giving providers same-day upfront payment. Based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Boudreaux operates at the intersection of financial technology and healthcare access, helping expand Cherry's reach across the healthcare provider ecosystem.
Coco Mao is the CEO and co-founder of OpenArt AI, the creative platform that grew from a viral Hacker News post about AI image prompts to $70M+ ARR with just 20 people. A Carnegie Mellon computer scientist who spent seven years at Google building search products and the Tangi short-form video app, she left in 2022 to co-found OpenArt with CTO John Qiao. Under her leadership, OpenArt scaled 7x in 2025, reached 8 million monthly active users, raised a $30M Series A from Canaan Partners, and launched One-Click Story — a feature that lets anyone turn a single sentence into a complete video with persistent characters.
Jamie Hale is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ladder, the Palo Alto-based digital life insurance company that has issued over $42 billion in coverage and raised $194 million in venture funding. Motivated by losing his father at age 11 and experiencing firsthand the stabilizing power of a life insurance payout, Hale set out to strip the life insurance industry down to its essential truth: a pure, flexible term product that takes minutes to buy online, not weeks of paperwork. Ladder reached a $900 million valuation in its 2021 Series D and has tripled revenue year-over-year, making Hale one of the most prominent voices in insurtech.
Masahiro 'Masa' Shimizu is the Founder & CEO of ZEALS Co., Ltd. and Omakase.ai, the Japanese pioneer of Chat Commerce. He started ZEALS as a Meiji University freshman in 2014 with robots and a mission to 'elevate Japan,' pivoted to chatbots within one month of Facebook opening its Messenger API in 2016, built Japan's #1 social chat commerce platform with 300+ employees and $69M+ raised, and is now taking that same hospitality-first philosophy — what he calls 'Omotenashi' — into voice-powered AI agents for global e-commerce through Omakase.ai.
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.
Paul Davison is the co-founder and CEO of Clubhouse, the live audio social platform that hit a $4 billion valuation within a year of launch during the COVID-19 pandemic. A Stanford-trained industrial engineer turned serial entrepreneur, Davison previously co-founded Highlight (acquired by Pinterest in 2016) and served briefly as CEO of CoinList. His career has centered on one obsession: giving people better ways to find each other and talk. Clubhouse - which he built with co-founder Rohan Seth - brought the intimacy of voice to the scale of a social network, attracting tens of millions of users and sparking a live-audio wave across the industry.
Petko Plachkov is the Co-Founder and CEO of Bright Money, a San Francisco-based AI-powered personal finance platform that helps middle-income Americans manage debt, build credit, and access affordable financial products. A Princeton and Wharton-educated serial entrepreneur who grew up in Bulgaria and Swaziland, Petko spent over a decade building digital financial products at McKinsey and as Co-Founder of CommuterClub before launching Bright Money in 2019. The company has raised $93M in funding, serves over 1 million users, and is powered by MoneyScience - a patented system of 34 AI algorithms.
Amir Sadeghian is the Co-Founder and CEO of Astrocade, the world's first agentic AI game creation platform that lets anyone build fully playable games from a text prompt. A Stanford PhD in Computer Vision and AI, Sadeghian previously co-founded Aibee Inc. - a Sequoia-backed AI unicorn - before teaming up with his brother Ali Sadeghian and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li to build Astrocade. The platform has amassed 20 million users and 140 million monthly game plays across 80 countries within 8 months of launch, backed by $68M from Sequoia Capital, Sea, NVIDIA, Google, and Eric Schmidt.
Sean Mehra is the co-founder and CEO of HealthTap, a Sunnyvale-based virtual-first primary and urgent care platform serving millions of Americans across all 50 states. A Yale biomedical engineering graduate and Stanford MBA, Mehra pivoted from aspiring physician to serial tech entrepreneur—building games companies with hundreds of thousands of simultaneous players before co-founding HealthTap during his first year at Stanford business school. Under his leadership as CEO (appointed June 2021), HealthTap has grown to serve over 350 million consumers, partnered with Samsung Health to embed virtual care in millions of Android devices, and launched Dr.A.I., an LLM-powered pre-visit interview system. Mehra also co-founded what is now Yale's TSAI City entrepreneurship incubator.
Avia (formerly AviaGames) is a San Mateo-based mobile gaming company behind Pocket7Games, a skill-based tournament platform where players compete in puzzle, card, bingo, and arcade titles for cash prizes. Founded in 2017 by Vickie Chen and Ping Wang, the company uses algorithmic skill matchmaking and a single-wallet system across a portfolio that includes Solitaire Clash, Bingo Clash, and Bubble Buzz.
Cambly is an on-demand English tutoring platform that connects learners in 190+ countries with native English-speaking tutors available 24/7 via live video chat. Founded in 2012 by two former Google engineers, Cambly makes immersive English learning accessible and affordable - bringing the language-learning breakthrough of traveling abroad directly to any phone or laptop. With AI-powered personalization layered over millions of data points from a decade of real lessons, Cambly sits at the intersection of human connection and technology in the $60B+ global English education market.
Connectly is a San Francisco AI startup that turns WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS and RCS threads into a real sales channel. Its Sofia AI agent talks to shoppers in natural language, recommends products, recovers carts, and hands off to humans when needed. The company raised a $20M Series B led by Alibaba in September 2024 and works with retailers and consumer brands across Latin America, the US, and Asia.
TeachMe.To is a marketplace for booking in-person private lessons - golf, tennis, pickleball, music, yoga, and more - that matches beginners with vetted local coaches and handles scheduling, payments, and reviews in one place.