nashville-startup
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The Guy Who Helped Build Amazon's Bookstore Now Runs a Netflix for Church Kids
Erick Goss left Amazon's e-book empire to build a streaming app that vets every cartoon against a 50-point checklist. Parents pay $10.99 a month so their four-year-olds can watch Bible stories instead of ads.
Simba Jonga
Simba Jonga is the founder and CEO of Laborup, an AI-powered hiring platform often described as the LinkedIn of manufacturing. A University of Tennessee chemical engineer turned Stanford AI researcher, he built Laborup after watching skilled machinists, welders and technicians struggle to get hired despite working inside high-tech factories. The platform uses an autonomous AI voice agent to interview and vet workers, building profiles in minutes and matching them to high-paying industrial jobs. Laborup has raised $7.7M from investors including NVP, Torch Capital and angels Jeff Dean, Jeff Jordan and Evan Moore, grown a 25,000-strong East Tennessee worker network, and is expanding across the South and Midwest.
Yoshi Mobility
Yoshi Mobility is a Nashville-based automotive services company that brings car care to the vehicle instead of making the vehicle come to the shop. What began in 2015 as on-demand, at-home gasoline delivery has grown into a full suite of mobile services: preventative maintenance and tire work, AI-assisted virtual vehicle inspections, and mobile EV charging. Backed by General Motors Ventures, Bridgestone Americas, and ExxonMobil, the company serves fleets, rideshare and car-sharing platforms like Uber and Turo, and Fortune 100 customers across all 50 states.