shadow-data
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FORA
FORA is a New York-based AI communication intelligence platform built for enterprise leadership. It captures and analyzes conversations from meetings, email, chat, and CRM systems, then turns that qualitative data into secure, actionable insights - flagging risks, eliminating shadow data, auto-updating OKRs, and surfacing what the C-suite actually needs to know. Founded in 2024 by serial HR-tech entrepreneur Joe Essenfeld, the company launched with $3.8 million in pre-seed funding led by Converge.
Joe Essenfeld
Joe Essenfeld is a serial entrepreneur and Co-Founder & CEO of FORA (fora.day), a New York-based AI communication intelligence platform that transforms unstructured enterprise meeting, email, and chat data into actionable leadership insights. He previously founded Jibe, a recruiting technology platform that raised $40M+ and was acquired by iCIMS in 2019, where he served in senior executive roles before launching FORA. FORA raised a $3.8M pre-seed round in January 2024 and counts Converge, GTM Fund, Zelkova, and Everywhere Ventures among its backers.
Teleskope
Teleskope is a New York-based data security company that builds what it calls the industry's first agentic data protection platform. Founded in 2022 by former Airbnb security engineers Elizabeth Nammour and Julie Trias, it autonomously discovers, classifies, and protects sensitive data across cloud, SaaS, and on-premises environments, then automatically remediates risk through redaction, masking, encryption, and access fixes. The platform uses smaller, fine-tuned models to read business context, aiming to move teams beyond alert fatigue toward real action.