PersonFounderExecutive
Dakotah Rice
Dakotah Rice is the co-founder and CEO of Harper, an AI-native commercial insurance brokerage based in San Francisco and part of Y Combinator's Winter 2025 batch. After a Wall Street run through Goldman Sachs, The Carlyle Group, and Coatue Management, Rice built and wound down the fintech startup Poolit before returning to the insurance industry his family worked in. In February 2026 Harper announced a combined seed and Series A of roughly $47M led by Emergence Capital, reported as the largest publicly disclosed Series A ever raised by a Black founder. Harper matches small- and mid-sized businesses with 160+ carriers and serves thousands of customers across dozens of states.
dakotah riceharperharper insureai insurancecommercial insurance brokeragey combinator
