# Tim Cherkasov

> Tim Cherkasov is the co-founder and CEO of Trace (YC S25), an AI-native workflow orchestration platform that routes tasks between human teams and AI agents. A serial founder since age 17 with a fintech and data science background, he built and shut down the crypto-portfolio startup Clustr before pivoting into Trace, which topped the YC Launchpad leaderboard for the Summer 2025 cohort and raised a $3M seed round in early 2026.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Trace
- **Organizations:** Trace, Clustr, Copper.co, Nickel Digital Asset Management, 500 Global
- **Education:** MSc, Business Analytics, University College London (UCL)
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Trace (YC S25), an AI-native workflow orchestration platform used by 30+ companies, Raised a $3M seed round from Y Combinator, Zeno Ventures, Transpose Platform Management, Goodwater Capital, Formosa Capital and WeFunder, Claimed the #1 spot on the YC Launchpad leaderboard for the Summer 2025 cohort

## Career timeline

- **~2013** — Begins building startups at age 17 across retail tech, travel, and web3
- **2017-2018** — Completes MSc in Business Analytics at UCL
- **Prior** — Works as a data scientist across hedge funds and scaleups, including Nickel Digital Asset Management
- **Prior** — Product manager at Copper, delivering an institutional digital-asset offering for State Street
- **Prior** — Founds and leads Clustr, a crypto-portfolio platform that reached ~9,000 users before being shut down
- **2025** — Co-founds Trace with Artur Romanov; accepted into Y Combinator Summer 2025 batch
- **2025** — Trace tops the YC Launchpad leaderboard for the Summer '25 cohort
- **2026** — Announces $3M seed round for Trace

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Trace (YC S25), an AI-native workflow orchestration platform used by 30+ companies
- Raised a $3M seed round from Y Combinator, Zeno Ventures, Transpose Platform Management, Goodwater Capital, Formosa Capital and WeFunder
- Claimed the #1 spot on the YC Launchpad leaderboard for the Summer 2025 cohort
- Got into Y Combinator after six prior rejected applications
- Delivered an institutional digital-asset offering for State Street while at Copper
- Grew earlier startup Clustr to around 9,000 users with real revenue

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — Trace announced a $3M seed round to solve the AI agent adoption problem in enterprise, covered by TechCrunch.
- **2025-09** — Trace claimed the #1 spot on the YC Launchpad leaderboard for the Summer 2025 cohort.
- **2025-08** — Trace launched publicly out of Y Combinator's Summer 2025 batch.

## Links

- Website: https://trace.so
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timcherkasov
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/timcherkasov
- YouTube: https://youtu.be/RfJerH9r2-8

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/tim-cherkasov
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-31