Material is a New York-based direct-to-consumer kitchenware company building beautifully designed, non-toxic, and sustainably made cooking essentials that are meant to last a lifetime. Founded in 2017 by Eunice Byun and Dave Nguyen, the brand pairs minimalist design with thoughtful materials - Japanese steel knives, copper-core pans, and the reBoard cutting board made from recycled plastic scraps and sugarcane - to make everyday cooking simpler and more pleasurable.
Nevis is a New York-based startup building the first unified AI platform for wealth management. Founded in 2024 by three former Revolut leaders, it automates the back-office work that eats up to 80% of a financial advisor's day - meeting prep, client follow-ups, account opening and ongoing service - so advisors can spend their time with clients instead of paperwork. The company emerged from stealth in December 2025 with $40M in total funding from Sequoia, ICONIQ and Ribbit Capital, and already supports RIAs managing more than $50 billion in assets.
dub is America's first regulated copy-trading platform, letting everyday investors mirror the portfolios of top traders, hedge-fund managers, and even politicians with a single tap. Founded by 23-year-old Harvard dropout Steven Wang and headquartered in New York, the SEC-registered, FINRA-member, SIPC-insured app has surpassed 1 million downloads and raised $47M total, including a $30M Series A in May 2025 co-led by Notable Capital and Neo.
Heartwork is a New York-based commercial furniture company that designs and manufactures steel storage solutions for the modern workplace. Founded in 2012 by Karen John, the company builds modular cabinets, credenzas, desks, and cloud-connected smart lockers from heavy-duty American steel, all GREENGUARD Gold certified and made to order in the USA. Heartwork turns the overlooked, drab world of office storage into design-forward, customizable furniture that helps companies express their culture while minimizing environmental impact.
M.M.LaFleur is a New York-based direct-to-consumer womenswear brand that coined the term 'Power Casual' and built its business around solving a single problem: getting ambitious women dressed for work without wasting their time. Founded in 2013 by Sarah LaFleur, designer Miyako Nakamura, and Narie Foster, the company pairs thoughtfully engineered professional clothing with a free personal-styling service called Bento that curates a box of pieces around each customer. After a near-collapse during the pandemic, the company was rescued by a syndicate of women investors and refocused on the wardrobe needs of a hybrid working world.
Margaux is a New York-based, female-founded footwear brand making handcrafted women's shoes in a family-owned Spanish factory. Co-founded in 2015 by Harvard friends Alexa Buckley and Sarah Pierson, the brand is built around a simple idea most of the industry ignored: women should not have to choose between a shoe that fits and a shoe they love. Margaux offers one of the widest size ranges in the business (roughly US 3-14) across narrow, medium and wide widths, plus a fit concierge - turning sizing into a service rather than a compromise. Its bestseller, The Demi ballet flat, has racked up thousands of glowing reviews and a Vogue following.
Ophelia is a New York-based telehealth company making evidence-based opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment available from home. It connects people to licensed clinicians for medication-assisted treatment (buprenorphine/Suboxone), with video visits, on-demand messaging, and care coordination, deliberately removing the friction and stigma of traditional rehab. Founded in 2019 by Zack Gray after he lost a loved one to an overdose, Ophelia focuses heavily on Medicaid and rural populations and has raised roughly $68 million, including a $50M Series B led by Tiger Global in 2021.
WTHN is a modern wellness brand rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine, built to make acupuncture, cupping, herbal remedies and acupressure tools accessible to everyday people. Founded in New York in 2019 by Michelle Larivee and Dr. Shari Auth, it pairs design-forward studios across NYC with an at-home product line sold through 200+ retailers and e-commerce, aiming to take centuries-old healing out of the back room and into modern life.
Zorro is an AI-powered ICHRA platform that swaps rigid group health plans for a defined-contribution model - think 401(k), but for health insurance. Employers set a budget, employees get a personal allowance, and Zorro's decision-support engine helps each person pick an individual plan that actually fits their doctors, medications, and wallet. The platform serves employers, employees, and the brokers who sell to them, and clients have averaged over 20% premium savings versus traditional group coverage.
Ryan Janssen is the Co-founder and CEO of Zenlytic, a New York-based AI-powered business intelligence platform that lets non-technical users query data in plain English. A former McKinsey consultant and 6-year venture capital investor with advanced degrees from Harvard and Oxford, Ryan co-founded Zenlytic in 2020 alongside CTO Paul Blankley after spotting a gap: companies had modern data infrastructure but no accessible way to use it. Zenlytic has raised $15.4M including a $9M Series A in 2024 led by M13, and its AI analyst Zoe can now onboard itself autonomously to any data warehouse.
Sage Wohns is the CEO and Co-Founder of Jericho Security, a New York-based AI cybersecurity company that trains humans and AI systems to defend against AI-powered attacks including hyper-realistic phishing, deepfakes, and voice cloning. A Seattle native and 10-year AI industry veteran, Wohns previously built and led Agolo, a Google- and Microsoft-backed NLP summarization company, before co-founding Jericho Security in 2023. The company made history by winning the Pentagon's first-ever generative AI defense contract through AFWERX in December 2023, and has since raised $18M in total funding, including a $15M Series A in April 2025. With 39 employees and 30+ enterprise clients, Jericho Security is at the frontier of AI-versus-AI cyber defense.
Steve McGarry is the CEO of Rosaluna Mezcal, the New York-based premium spirits brand distilled from agave and water in Santiago Matatlan, Oaxaca. A mechanical engineer turned spirits executive, he spent years at Pernod Ricard running prestige sales before taking the helm at Rosaluna, where he closed a 2025 Series A led by Whispering Angel creator Sacha Lichine and steered the brand to become the first mezcal ever to earn Mexico's Distintivo Verde sustainability certification.
Victor Lopez is the co-founder and CEO of FlexPoint, a payments-automation platform built for managed service providers and the small businesses they serve. A former finance lawyer turned private-credit principal at Owl Rock/Blue Owl Capital, he left the world of middle-market lending to attack a less glamorous problem: getting small businesses paid faster. Founded in 2022 and launched in 2023, FlexPoint raised a $12M Series A led by Foundry Group in 2025 and now handles payments for tens of thousands of businesses.
James (Jim) Rosenthal co-founded BlueVoyant in 2017 and built it from a startup into a global cybersecurity company with more than 650 employees across five continents. A former Chief Operating Officer of Morgan Stanley, where he answered to the CEO and board for cybersecurity, he turned a Wall Street obsession with protecting the financial system into a company that defends businesses and governments against internal and supply-chain threats. In May 2026 he handed the CEO role to John Hernandez and became Chairman of the Board.
Rory O'Reilly is the CEO and co-founder of Knot, a New York fintech building the API layer that lets people switch the card on file across hundreds of merchants like Netflix and Amazon in a single tap. A Thiel Fellow and Harvard dropout, he built Knot with his brother Kieran after a decade of ventures together - turning YouTube clips into viral GIFs at gifs.com, riding an early Ethereum wave, and running Millions, the gamified debit card that became the biggest challenger bank on TikTok. Knot raised a $10M Series A led by Nava Ventures with Amex Ventures and Plaid backing.
Tiffin is the founder and CEO of Aisle, a New York retail growth platform that turns real-world shopping into measurable in-store sales: a customer photographs a receipt, texts it in, and gets Venmo'd within minutes. He built the whole thing through text because, in his words, no one has room on their iPhone for another app. Before Aisle he talked his way into an internship at Super Coffee in 2017, dropped out of school, slept on the founders' couch, and helped scale the brand from $700K to $5M in a year - then realized brands had no idea who was buying them off the shelf. Aisle, now trusted by hundreds of CPG brands, is his answer to that blind spot.
Tomer Aharoni is the co-founder and CEO of Nagish, a New York startup using AI to caption phone calls in real time so Deaf and hard-of-hearing people can place and receive calls by typing and reading, with no human operator in the loop. The idea began with a phone ringing during a class at Columbia and a question he couldn't shake: how do you take a call if you can't hear or speak? Nagish (Hebrew for 'accessible') is now FCC-certified, offered free to users through federal subsidies, and has raised $16 million. Aharoni builds the product hand-in-hand with the Deaf community and is now pushing into AI sign-language translation.
The New York Academy of Sciences is one of the oldest scientific organizations in the United States, founded in 1817. A nonprofit professional society with more than 20,000 members across 100 countries, it convenes scientists, students, policymakers and the public to advance research, education and expertise. Its work spans flagship recognition programs like the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists and the Tata Transformation Prize, global STEM education through the Junior Academy and Global STEM Alliance, crisis-response coordination via the International Science Reserve, and the long-running peer-reviewed journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
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.
Andrew Schulz is a New York-born stand-up comedian, podcaster, and actor who upended the comedy industry by self-distributing his specials directly to fans — selling out Radio City Music Hall twice in a night and Madison Square Garden multiple times — while co-hosting the hit Flagrant podcast with Akaash Singh. His 2022 special 'Infamous' and 2025 Netflix special 'Life' cemented his reputation as one of the most commercially independent voices in modern comedy.
Amanda Richman is VP of Global Media Sales at Microsoft Advertising, leading a 700+ person omnichannel sales team from New York. A 30-year veteran of media and advertising, she has run agencies including Wavemaker US and Mindshare North America, winning Adweek's U.S. Media Agency of the Year at Wavemaker in 2020. She joined Microsoft in March 2024 to help brands navigate the convergence of generative AI, search, and connected TV advertising.
Danielle Sadick is an Area Vice President of Strategic Enterprise - Digital Media at Adobe, based in New York City. She leads enterprise-level digital media sales strategy, working with some of the world's largest organizations to adopt Adobe's creative and digital media solutions. Her career spans over a decade in digital advertising and media, progressing from assistant media planner at Neo@Ogilvy through programmatic trading roles before joining Adobe, where she has steadily advanced from account executive to vice president. She specializes in connecting enterprise clients with Adobe's expansive creative and marketing technology ecosystem.
Imma Calvo is VP of Sales, US Commerce at Google Customer Solutions, leading commerce innovation for brands across the Americas. Originally from Barcelona, she spent a decade in California before relocating to New York and has worked at Google since 2007 across EMEA and US markets in roles spanning retail, apps, and agency. A passionate mentor to startups and women in tech, she speaks at major industry conferences and brings fluency in Spanish, Catalan, and the language of disruption.
Matthew Smith is VP of Creative Cloud Strategy & Growth at Adobe, where he leads strategy, design, and emerging products across Adobe Stock, Behance, Adobe Podcast, and AI/ML content initiatives. A product leader and founder, he previously served as SVP of Product at Vimeo and co-founded Workframe, a commercial real estate workflow platform acquired by Newmark in 2019. Based in New York, Smith sits at the intersection of creativity, technology, and the creator economy.
Natalie Gibralter is a New York-based product executive currently serving as VP of Product, AI Innovation for Microsoft Experience and Devices. She built her reputation as the first Product Manager at Squarespace, scaling the company's commerce platform through a decade of 10x growth to IPO. Before tech, she founded TrailTalks, a nonprofit bridging young Israeli backpackers with international peers, and helped launch KIND's social mission. An Oxford-trained philosopher turned product leader, she was named to Crain's New York Business 40 Under 40 in 2022 and is known for building empowered, outcome-focused teams at the intersection of people and technology.
Oren True Herzenberg is an Area Vice President of Content at Adobe, based in New York, where he leads enterprise sales and strategy for Adobe's content management portfolio - including Adobe Experience Manager and the Content Supply Chain - with a particular focus on regulated industries like financial services and insurance. A Stevens Institute of Technology graduate who came up through digital marketing and inside sales, he has spent the bulk of his career scaling Adobe's AEM business from specialist to general manager to VP, building a reputation for connecting the dots between complex enterprise content challenges and Adobe's platform ecosystem.
Ross Kennedy is the Global Vice President of AI Startups & Emerging Growth at Microsoft, based in New York. With two decades of experience scaling technology organizations from startup to hyperscale, he leads Microsoft's efforts to help AI startups innovate, grow, and become market makers. Before Microsoft, he was a key force behind Google Cloud's expansion from $5.8B to over $30B in revenue, leading the global Strategic Deal Pursuit division for four years. Earlier, he scaled Liferay's international operations from 200 to 900 employees across 30+ countries. His guiding philosophy: culture beats strategy.
Sydney Williams is Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at ServiceNow, where she oversees the company's global marketing and communications across creative, content, media, and events. An award-winning marketing leader with over two decades of experience, she has shaped the brand voices of iconic organizations including General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, and JPMorgan Chase, and now steers ServiceNow's push to put AI to work for people.
Taylor Carlson is an Area Vice President at Adobe overseeing Customer Experience Orchestration, leading enterprise sales teams focused on AI-driven journey management and digital experience solutions. With a career arc spanning QA engineering at GameHouse to top-performing enterprise account executive at Bizible to VP leadership at Adobe, Carlson has built a reputation for closing complex enterprise deals and scaling high-performing revenue teams. Based in New York, they hold a BS in Information Science and Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington and a Certificate of Negotiation Mastery from Harvard Business School Online.
Terrence Morash is VP, Head of Marketing (Brand and Creative) at Slice, the New York-based technology platform powering independent pizzerias across the United States. A veteran creative and marketing leader with deep roots in digital advertising, he has shaped Slice's transformation from a consumer pizza-ordering app into a full-service B2B partner for local pizza shops - building brand campaigns, a loyalty program, a POS system launch, and the 'Slice of the Union' thought leadership series. Before Slice, Morash led creative at Shutterstock, where his trend-forecasting work reached global audiences, and held senior creative roles at Rosetta, Again Interactive, and Zeta Interactive.