test-prep
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Alec Whitters Bet His Dental Career on a Phone-Sized Flashcard
Alec Whitters was almost a dentist. Then a box of paper flashcards looked absurd beside his smartphone - and a stubborn Iowa experiment became a test-prep business used around the world.
Yermie Cohen
Yermie Cohen is the founder and CEO of Memorang, an AI stack for education that lets organizations build, launch, and scale custom learning and assessment content. A med student who arrived at UCLA from MIT with biology and mechanical-engineering degrees, he was buried in flashcards and frustrated by tools that were either too simple or too expensive, so he built his own. Memorang began as a free spaced-repetition study app in 2013 and has since become a platform pitched at publishers, institutions, and professional organizations who want to turn expertise into AI-driven courses, quizzes, and exams with humans kept in the loop.
Don Le
Don Le is the co-founder and CEO of Everest Education (E2), a Ho Chi Minh City-based edtech company that brings blended Math and English enrichment, test prep, and college admissions help to students from Grade 1 to 12. A Stanford economics graduate who started out at Bain & Company and Red Mountain Capital, he moved to Vietnam in 2007 and helped build finance, technology, and consumer businesses, including Highlands Coffee and Pho 24 operator Viet Thai International, before turning to education. Everest has raised about $5.4M, capped by a $4M Series B in 2019, and in 2022 launched a joint venture with Spark Education to localize world-class online learning for Vietnam.
Joaquin Olmedo
Joaquin Olmedo is the co-founder and CEO of Filadd (YC S21), a Córdoba-born edtech platform helping students across Latin America get into — and through — university. What began in 2016 as an online prep course for Argentine university entrance exams has grown into a four-country operation serving over 25,000 students annually, with 90% year-over-year growth and recognition as one of Holon IQ's 100 Leading LatAm EdTechs. An industrial engineer by training, Olmedo applied to Y Combinator on a Mexican investor's offhand suggestion and was accepted — with metrics that caught the partners' attention immediately.
Jiayuan Fang
Dr. Jiayuan Fang is the Founder and CEO of Afficient Academy, a Silicon Valley edtech company that uses patented AI-driven adaptive learning to help K-12 students advance a full grade level in 2-5 months. A former UC Berkeley PhD and electrical engineering professor turned serial entrepreneur, Fang previously founded Sigrity Inc., which was acquired by Cadence Design Systems for approximately $80 million in 2012. His pivot to education was sparked by his own three children's experience with inadequate after-school tutoring - leading him to build a platform that identifies not just what students get wrong, but why.
Shaan Patel
Dr. Shaan Patel is the founder and CEO of Prep Expert, the SAT/ACT prep company that landed a $250,000 deal from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank Season 7 - one of Cuban's most profitable Shark Tank investments. He raised his own SAT score 640 points to a perfect score, then built a company that has helped 100,000+ students improve their scores and win over $100 million in college scholarships. Board-certified dermatologist, Yale MBA, USC MD - Patel turned a personal academic transformation into a $75M+ enterprise.