Capacity is a St. Louis-based AI support automation company whose unified CX platform uses agentic and generative AI to deflect support tickets, emails, and calls while assisting human agents in real time. Founded in 2017 by David Karandish and Chris Sims - the team behind the $900M+ sale of Answers - Capacity serves more than 20,000 organizations including Disney, NVIDIA, and American Express, and crossed $60M in annual recurring revenue in 2025.
Jim McKelvey is the co-founder of Square (now Block, Inc.), a serial entrepreneur, master glassblower, author, and philanthropist from St. Louis. He built Square after losing a $2,000 sale at his glass studio because he couldn't accept American Express - and turned that frustration into a payments company that beat Amazon when it tried to copy them. He's also founded Invisibly, co-founded LaunchCode (a nonprofit that guarantees tech jobs), serves as an Operator Advisor at Redbud VC, and is a former Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Lori Coulter is the co-founder, CEO, and President of Summersalt, the St. Louis-based direct-to-consumer swimwear and apparel brand built on data from 1.5 million body measurements. She turned a pre-teen concession stand hustle into a generation-defining brand that has sold over 4 million garments, raised $30M+, and landed in Vogue, Elle, and Forbes. She now serves as an Operator Advisor at Redbud VC and adjunct faculty at Washington University's Olin Business School, championing equitable venture funding for female founders.
David Siteman Garland (DSG) is a St. Louis-based entrepreneur, author, and online course pioneer who turned a Bar Mitzvah savings account into a multi-million dollar media and education empire. Founder of The Rise To The Top — self-branded as 'The #1 Non-Boring Resource For Building Your Business Smarter, Faster, Cheaper' — he has generated $10M+ in online course sales, built an email list of 85,000+ subscribers, and taught 5,000+ students in 100+ countries through his flagship program Create Awesome Online Courses. A Wiley-published author, Inc. 500 honoree (#938, 2017), and co-founder of software companies Course Cats and Nrdly, DSG is also the founder of STL Maccabi Basketball and grandson of cancer research philanthropist Alvin J. Siteman.