Our Founders

The Premier AI Founder Network

264 founders. 90% repeat founders. 34% with prior exits. Meet some of the exceptional people in the Inception community.

$3.2B+

Previously Raised

90%

Repeat Founders

34%

Prior Exits

15+

Years Avg Experience

Meet Some of Our Founders

Nick Desai

Nick Desai

Queue · 6x Founder & CEO

MS EE UCLA. 6x VC-funded founder/CEO (Together, Heal). Gen-AI and ML obsessed. Speaker and author. 3 exits.

$300M raised (Breyer Capital, Fidelity, Spark Capital, Humana, Slow Ventures)

Sharmin Ali

Sharmin Ali

Adomo AI · 4x Entrepreneur

4x entrepreneur with 3 exits. Bestselling author of 3 books, global keynote speaker on innovation and AI. Created 10K+ jobs.

$200M+ raised collectively (a16z, GEM VC). 3 exits.

Andy Chou

Andy Chou

Ventrilo.ai · Founder

BS EECS Berkeley, Stanford CS PhD. Founded Coverity in '03, grew to $75M ARR. Acquired by Synopsys.

Angel investor in 20+ companies (Loom, LaunchDarkly)

Yuka Kojima

Yuka Kojima

Ememe · 3x Founder

MIT MBA, ex-PlayStation. 3x founder: Ememe (text-to-motion), FOVE (eye-tracking VR), and Cradle (DEI SaaS). Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia; Nikkei Woman of the Year.

$26M raised (Foxconn, Samsung, Nikon)

Juan Lozano

Juan Lozano

Mariana Minerals · Co-founder & CTO

Stanford Physics & CS (AI). Co-founded InsideMaps, led ML at Kite (acquired by Affirm).

$400M raised (Khosla Ventures, a16z, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Greenoaks)

Monisha Perkash

Monisha Perkash

Mojo Ventures · 2x Founder & CEO

Yale Psychobiology. Stanford MBA & MA Education. 2x co-founder/CEO (Lumo Bodytech, TuitionCoach). Ex-Meta Director of Product for smart glasses and music/creators. Stanford entrepreneurship lecturer.

$26M raised (Eric Schmidt/Innovation Endeavors, Jerry Yang/AME Cloud Ventures, Madrona). 2 exits.

Michael Borohovski

Michael Borohovski

Kobo Foundry · Founder & CEO

MIT CS '09. Founder & CTO of Tinfoil Security (acquired by Synopsys). Years of offensive software security for the intelligence community; also Morgan Stanley, Mandiant, and Apple. 8 patents.

$1.5M raised (Naval Ravikant, Ridge Ventures, Morado Ventures). 1 exit.

Kelly Peng

Kelly Peng

First Intelligence · Founder & CEO

UC Berkeley EECS, Stanford Nanofab. 2x founder. Previously founded Kura (taped out world's fastest smart display driver at TSMC). Forbes 30 Under 30.

$17M+ raised (TSMC, SAIC Motors, Access Industries). 2x CES Awards.

Josh Payne

Josh Payne

Coframe · 4x Founder

Stanford Engineering + MBA. 20+ patents in AI, quantum computing, infosec. Co-founded Autograph with Tom Brady ($2B+ unicorn, a16z). AccessBell acquired by Tata Group.

$9M raised (Khosla Ventures, NFDG)

Asmau Ahmed

Asmau Ahmed

Rinnce · 3x Founder

Chemical engineering at UVA, MBA at Columbia. Founded Plum Perfect, a visual AI company she scaled from a solo project to millions of users globally. Led moonshot teams at GoogleX. Now Chief AI & Data Officer at Varo Bank while building Rinnce, a Responsible Innovation Center for the age of AI.

1 exit

CK Chang Kim

CK Chang Kim

Saywise · Co-founder & CEO

3x founder. Michigan Physics. Ex-Google PM. Co-founded TNC (acquired by Google). Founded Tapas Media (acquired by Kakao, $510M).

Tapas acquired by Kakao for $510M

Jason Zhang

Jason Zhang

Fairway · Founder & CEO

Co-founder of HomeLight (~$2B valuation, $200M ARR). Led marketplace growth at StubHub and Upwork Innovation Labs. Now building an AI rental concierge that takes renters from search to signing.

$250M raised (Google Ventures, Innovation Endeavors). 1 exit.

Rafael Cosman

Rafael Cosman

Protogon Research · Founder & CEO

Stanford CS. Ex-Google Brain & Palantir. Founded Archblock and grew it 0 → 70+ people and 7-figure ARR. Co-founded StreetCode Academy.

$41.5M raised. 1 exit.

Adam Cohen Hillel

Adam Cohen Hillel

Interfaces · 4x Founder

Built one of Israel's largest mobile games companies as a teenager (1.5M downloads). First founding member of IDF Cyber Unit 81. Cado Security (acquired by Darktrace). Early team at Omi; co-created suna.so, the largest open-source Manus competitor.

1 exit

Nate Becker

Nate Becker

Sela · 2x Founder & CEO

Yale '09, LinkedIn data science alum. Previously founded VoiceOps (YC), signed Square and Sunrun as customers.

$17.3M raised (Accel, Founders Fund, Bain Capital Ventures)

Leigh Purnell

Leigh Purnell

Subatomic Energy · Founder & CEO

Founder & CEO of Petalite. 11 years in battery charging, asset finance, and smart energy networks. 25+ patents in battery management and power electronics.

$51M raised (TPG). 1 exit.

Jeff Anderson

Jeff Anderson

Subatomic Energy · Founder & COO

4x founder, 12 years as a venture-backed operator. Founder & CEO of Full Cycle Bioplastics ($30M raised). Built and run teams of 80+.

$35M raised. 1 exit.

Vadim Axelrod

Vadim Axelrod

Cara AI · 10x Startup Founder

Pomona '91, Stanford '93. CTO/product focus across 10+ startups in healthtech, security, networking, and edtech (Lark Health, Rentals.com, Entrust).

$30M raised (Sequoia, SoftBank). 2 exits.

Brian Bentow

Brian Bentow

SlashGuard · 6x Founder & CEO

Harvey Mudd '05. Multi-exited technical founder who builds capital-efficient companies fast — 3 exits from companies he founded.

$11M raised (Aquiline Capital, Equal Ventures, Chapter One). 3 exits, $500M in business value.

Deyan Vitanov

Deyan Vitanov

Jest · 4x Founder

Stanford MBA. 4x founder (3 acquired, 1 bootstrapped & profitable). CMO at gaming unicorn Playco.

4 exits

Jay Park

Jay Park

iQ Surgical · Co-Founder & CEO

MD from the University of Edinburgh; postdoctoral scholar in Stanford Neurosurgery. Co-founded Stanford's Surgical Innovation & Machine Interfacing (SIMI) Lab.

$1.5M raised

Sahin Boydas

Sahin Boydas

Lovie · 5x Founder

5x founder. 2 exits (RemoteTeam → Gusto, MovieLaLa → Snap). Angel investor in 180 startups.

$10M raised (Marc Benioff, SoftBank)

Taranjeet Singh

Taranjeet Singh

mem0 · Co-Founder & CEO

Built an AI tutor featured at Google I/O and in the first GPT Store. Co-founded mem0 (formerly Embedchain), the memory layer for AI agents. 64K+ GitHub stars.

$24M raised across Seed and Series A (YC, Inception)

Vincent Alessi

Vincent Alessi

Augmentiv · 5x Founder

Deep-tech entrepreneur in life science and advanced materials. Michigan, Harvard, Rockefeller University, DoD. Built a $1.8B Bio × AI program for Flagship. 18 patents.

$25M raised (Mercury, Telegraph Hill Partners). 2 exits.

Jeremy Nixon

Jeremy Nixon

Infinity · Founder & CEO

Founder & CEO of Infinity (AI infrastructure optimization). Founder of AGI House and AGI Foundation (75+ AI hackathons and technical events). Partner at Principal Venture Partners.

$850K raised

Alex Beatson

Alex Beatson

Axiom Bio · Co-Founder

Princeton PhD in deep learning & generative models. Director of ML at Redesign Science (small-molecule drug discovery). AI toxicity testing.

$40M Series A

Skyler Erickson

Skyler Erickson

Gondola · Co-Founder & CEO

Builder across hardware, AI/ML, biotech, and consumer products. Co-founded Otari, acquired by Peloton.

$3M raised. 1 exit.

Ben Turtel

Ben Turtel

Lightning Rod Labs · 2x Founder & CEO

Ex-Google engineer and Area120 CTO. Co-founded Lightning Rod Labs to train AI that predicts the future from unstructured data — self-play on real-world outcomes, no curated labels.

$4M raised (Rich Miner, Hilary Kivitz, Tim Lee). $700K+ revenue; DoD Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace status. 1 exit.

Mike Pollack

Mike Pollack

Brixo · 5x Founder & CEO

5x founder across product, GTM, and marketing leadership.

$11M raised (Bloomberg Beta, Susa Ventures). 2 exits.

Ed Albanese

Ed Albanese

ThirdLaw · Founder & CEO

UVA BA, Wharton MBA. Founded Krypton in 2014. Employee #1 at Vectara, first business hire at Cloudera, led IoT at Splunk. Also VMware and MongoDB pre-$5M.

$4.5M raised (True Ventures, Costanoa Ventures). 1 exit.

Tyler Chen

Tyler Chen

Subtle Computing · Co-Founder & CEO

Berkeley undergrad, Stanford PhD dropout. Single-cell RNA-seq and microfluidics at Illumina, vehicle engineering at Hyperloop, neural interfaces at Stanford. AI agents for government.

$6M raised (Abstract Ventures, Steve Blank). YC X25.

Anand Atreya

Anand Atreya

3x Founder

Princeton BSE '07, Stanford MS '11. AI, robotics, and self-driving cars. 2x founder: WiFiSLAM (sold to Apple) and Savvy (sold to Google). Led personal finance product teams at Google.

2 exits (WiFiSLAM → Apple, Savvy → Google)

Andrew Radin

Andrew Radin

5x Founder

BS/MS CS, Stanford BMI. 5x entrepreneur, CTO then CEO. Built products used by millions in telephony, gaming, and ad tech. Founded Aria Pharmaceuticals. Top 100 AI Leader in Pharma.

Raised from a16z, SoftBank, and others

Erik Juhl

Erik Juhl

Protobloc · 3x Founder & CEO

Exited founder building a user-curated data and attestation layer that rewards people for their own participation. Founding team out of Beamery and Kabam.

$650K raised. 1 exit.

Elad Ferber

Elad Ferber

Synthpop · Co-Founder & CEO

Stanford & Technion grad. Talpiot (elite IDF unit). 10+ years building AI × healthcare. Founded Spry Health (acquired by ZOLL Itamar). Led engineering for SpaceIL (lunar lander).

$23M raised

Jan Jannink

Jan Jannink

Synthpop · Co-Founder & CTO

Stanford CS PhD (Database Group, 2001). Co-founder or founding member of 5 AI & analytics startups, 2 still ongoing, 1 exit. Occasional Stanford CS 193S instructor.

$23M raised

Kazuki Nakayashiki

Kazuki Nakayashiki

Glasp · Co-Founder

ME Chem & Bio at UTokyo, Business at UC Berkeley. Founded Glasp, a platform for annotating the web with AI. Alum of On Deck, Launch House, Berkeley SkyDeck.

+227

more amazing founders

Selected Inception Companies

Synthpop logo

Synthpop

Cohort 3

AI to streamline healthcare workflows. Raised $23M.

mem0 logo

mem0

Cohort 9

Cross-platform memory layer for LLMs. $24M raised across Seed and Series A. 64K+ stars on GitHub.

Jest logo

Jest

Cohort 4

Marketplace for messaging games. $7M seed from Innovation Endeavors.

Coframe logo

Coframe

Cohort 3

AI‑driven UX optimization. $9M from Khosla Ventures.

Rmix logo

Rmix

Cohort 7

First fully autonomous prescription vending machines. $4M pre-seed. 5 units in production.

Pie logo

Pie

Cohort 13

AI that helps product teams ship higher-quality software, faster.

Hyperscale logo

Hyperscale

Cohort 19

AI automation for trucking carriers.

Axiom Bio logo

Axiom Bio

Cohort 5

Replacing lab and animal testing with AI. Raised $40M.

Secondly logo

Secondly

Cohort 19

A small device to let AI control your phone.

Scorecard logo

Scorecard

Cohort 4

Evaluate, optimize, and ship enterprise AI agents.

Ventrilo logo

Ventrilo

Cohort 1

AI-powered writing assistant. $10M from a16z after forming team & demo at Inception.

Glasp logo

Glasp

Cohort 1

Social knowledge curation platform.

Precognition Labs logo

Precognition Labs

Cohort 19

AI agents for trust, safety, fraud, risk, and compliance teams.

Greenflash logo

Greenflash

Cohort 15

Turning AI interactions into actionable product insights. Signed ClickUp as enterprise client.

Octagon logo

Octagon

Cohort 6

Copilot for financial analysts.

Sela logo

Sela

Cohort 8

AI voice sales agents that beat human performance. Raised $6M.

Lightning Rod logo

Lightning Rod

HumanX 2025

Accurate predictive models with AI. Raised $4M.

Subtle logo

Subtle

Cohort 13

Voice that works everywhere. Raised $6M.

First Intelligence logo

First Intelligence

Cohort 11

Perplexity for the real world. Multimodal AI that can see, understand, and generate. Available as CAPI AI.

Omi logo

Omi

Cohort 10

AI wearable "second brain" that turns conversations into insights and memory you can search, summarize, and share.

GuestOS logo

GuestOS

Cohort 9

Voice AI for hospitality. 10 customers in production.

PrismaX logo

PrismaX

Cohort 11

Building the bridge between robotics and mainstream adoption.

April logo

April

Cohort 10

Voice AI executive assistant.

AIx2 logo

AIx2

Cohort 19

AI for fundraising and investing.

Emerald logo

Emerald

Cohort 14

Remote health monitoring without wearables.

Dryft logo

Dryft

Cohort 9

AI agents for the physical world. Raised $5M from General Catalyst.

Hexus logo

Hexus

Cohort 6

Create stunning demos, videos, and guides with AI. Acquired by Harvey (Jan 2026).

Alex AI logo

Alex AI

Cohort 6

AI agent for Xcode. Acquired by OpenAI (Aug 2025).

Sup AI logo

Sup AI

Cohort 21

AI reliability layer that minimizes hallucinations across LLM ensembles.

PupPilot logo

PupPilot

Cohort 17

AI front office platform for veterinary clinics.

Infinity logo

Infinity

Cohort 20

2–5× faster GPU inference via AI-generated kernel optimization.

Subatomic logo

Subatomic

Cohort 20

Home battery storage that buys cheap power automatically.

L

Lovie

Cohort 20

Agentic banking platform built for AI-native companies and solo founders.

AethexAI logo

AethexAI

Cohort 20

Voice AI that actually works for the next billion users.

iQ Surgical logo

iQ Surgical

Cohort 17

Real-time AI copilot guiding surgeons during high-stakes procedures.

Bon logo

Bon

Cohort 9

AI that helps consumers eliminate credit card debt faster and build credit.

Saywise logo

Saywise

Cohort 6

Speak for minutes; get weeks of professional content in your authentic voice.

Mariana Minerals logo

Mariana Minerals

Cohort 3

Software-first developer of critical minerals for energy, AI, and defense.

Trellis logo

Trellis

Cohort 3

AI that automates healthcare paperwork — prior auths, appeals, and document intake. ~$7M in total contract value.

Inception is an absolutely incredible community and it came at just the right moment for me. I tell every top founder I know to join Inception.

— Josh Payne, Coframe

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