seed-stage-startup
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Pinnacle - AI Coaching
Pinnacle is a New York-based HR-tech startup building scalable AI coaching that lives inside the tools employees already use. Its AI coach, Pascal, embeds in Slack, Microsoft Teams, and video meetings to give managers and employees personalized, real-time guidance drawn from their actual work context - performance reviews, 360 feedback, company competency frameworks, and day-to-day communication patterns. Founded by former accelerator CEO and executive coach Alexei Dunaway, Pinnacle raised a $2.5M seed round in March 2025 to bring executive-grade coaching to every employee, not just the C-suite.
Readyly
Readyly is an agentic AI platform built for local government and service-driven enterprises. Instead of scripted chatbots, it deploys AI Agents that listen, decide, and act across chat, voice, email, text, and social channels in 200+ languages - handling resident inquiries, permits, 311 work orders, and emergency alerts around the clock. Founded in 2021 and led by CEO Kris Sandor, the company promises deployment in about a week and meets government-grade security standards (SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, GDPR, ISO 27001, NIST AI RMF).
Ephraim Luft
Ephraim Luft is the co-founder and CEO of Togetherhood, a New York-based platform that helps schools, residential buildings and community spaces source, schedule and manage high-quality enrichment programs taught by vetted independent teaching artists and coaches. He built the company with his wife Danielle after pandemic remote learning collapsed for their own family in 2020, prompting them to rent space, hire teachers and build a classroom from scratch. Before Togetherhood, Ephraim was Chief Product Officer at luxury fashion platform Farfetch, where he sat on the executive board through its roughly $7B IPO, and earlier co-founded and led Circle of Moms, a parenting social network acquired by POPSUGAR in 2012. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Madeline Hung
Madeline Hung is the co-founder and CEO of Castle, a Hudson, New York fintech building payments infrastructure for the home - software that helps homeowners automate, consolidate, and reduce the cost of their biggest asset. She arrived at the idea the hard way, converting a derelict Hudson Valley photography studio into a livable house during the pandemic and discovering that tracking home spend felt like writing paper checks into a black hole. Before Castle she co-founded The Good Country with nation-branding strategist Simon Anholt and worked across human-rights research and citizen-engagement ventures, a path that runs from Oxfam and Health Leads to a seed-funded home finance app.