Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based CEO’ operating in the Consumer space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Edward Lando
Co-Founder & CEO of Goody
Edward Lando is the Managing Partner at Pareto Holdings.
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About Alpha, Catalina Crunch, CodeCombat, Conduit, Goody, Horizons School of Technology, Overtime, Pareto Holdings, Svrf: Goody makes sending gifts as easy as sending a text.
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Sunmeet Jolly
Founder & CEO of GROTU
Founder and Patent holder – GROTU mobile app @ 101 Islands LLC. Angel investor in 40 pre-IPO technology startups. Frequently invited by accelerators and angel forums to Judge startup competitions and discuss technology innovation. Former IT Consulting industry executive who sold hundreds of millions of dollars in consulting services to Fortune 500 companies working for Cap Gemini, HCL, L&T, NTT data.
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About GROTU: Patented GROTU app provides a much needed “private” collection of productivity and communication tools for friends and family social groups
Greg Kidd
Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer of GlobaliD
Believer that ones identity credentials should be truly portable and owned by individuals themselves rather than corporations or governments. The trade-off between security and privacy can meet the needs of both traditional institutions worried about compliance and risk, but also consumer protection advocates who care about the underserved and underbanked. Adviser/Investor via hardyaka.com for numerous startups in the exchange space including Shift, Ripple and 3taps, and previously Square and Twitter. Previously a director at Promontory Financial and a senior analyst for payments at The Board of Governor of the Federal Reserve. Senior Associate at Booz Allen. Founded and took Dispatch Management Services Corp public on the NASDAQ. Have worked as an instructor/leader for Outward Bound and the National Outdoor Leadership School. Specialties: Portable identity, digital currencies and exchange markets for goods, services, and information with functional emphasis on messaging, payments, and reputation/trust/risk. Well versed in visualizations for risk reporting and controls.
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About Apto Payments, GlobaliD, Hard Yaka: Create and manage your own portable, digital identity with globaliD.
Tim Chen
Founder and CEO of NerdWallet
Tim Chen is the founder and CEO of NerdWallet. A former hedge fund equity analyst specializing in payment processing companies, credit card networks, and technology companies, Tim also worked as an equity research analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in economics. In addition to writing for NerdWallet, Tim regularly contributes to several major personal finance publications.
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About NerdWallet: NerdWallet develops a financial platform to help people find the right credit cards and mortgage rates.
Steven Yang
Founder & CEO of Anker
Steven Yang is the Founder and CEO of Anker Innovations. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Peking University and a master’s in computer science from the University of Texas – Austin. He was a senior engineer at Google in California before leaving to found Anker in 2011.
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About Anker, Hunan Ocean Wing: Anker is a multinational team of techies that provides a range of products from batteries and chargers to hubs and readers, and more.
Arie Trouw
CEO & CTO & Founder of XYO
Ten years before Elon Musk wrote his first line of computer code, another young prodigy from South Africa was busy writing software on his TRS-80 Model I. In 1978, at the age of 10, Arie Trouw started developing software on the TRS-80 Model I, moving on to Atari, Apple, and PC. He then ran a series of bulletin boards centering on game-theory modification. Arie is an accomplished serial entrepreneur with a rich history of technological breakthroughs and business successes involving multiple 8-figure exit events. He is a strong believer in decentralization and the creation of the integrated owner/user model. Arie founded XY in 2012 (incorporated as Ength Degree, LLC before it was converted to a C Corporation in 2016). He currently serves as Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Prior to starting XY-The Findables Company, Arie was CEO and Chairman of Pike Holdings Inc and Chief Technology Officer of Tight Line Technologies LLC. He received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the New York Institute of Technology. Fun Fact: He is a member of one of the first Afrikaans speaking families to emigrate to the US from South Africa in 1976.
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About XY Labs, XY – The Persistent Company, XYO: XYO is a decentralized crypto-location oracle network aiming to provide accurate location data from cars to smartphones.
Lauren Schulte Wang
Founder & CEO of The Flex Co.
Lauren Schulte Wang is the founder & CEO of The Flex Company. Lauren has spent over a decade building leading consumer brands for companies including Coca-Cola, Autodesk, and IBM. She frequently speaks on the topics of women’s health and entrepreneurship and has been featured in The Economist, TechCrunch, OZY, The New Yorker, WIRED, The Washington Post and NPR. Lauren holds a Marketing degree from Georgia State University Robinson College of Business.
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About The Flex Co.: The Flex Co. is the top-selling sustainable period care brand known for creating a more comfortable period for everyone.
Jake Kassan
CEO/Co-Founder of MVMT
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About MVMT: MVMT (pronounced movement) is a watchmaker company, founded on the belief that style shouldn’t break the bank.
Jake Kassan
CEO/Co-Founder of MVMT
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About MVMT: MVMT (pronounced movement) is a watchmaker company, founded on the belief that style shouldn’t break the bank.
Daniel Rotman
Founder & CEO of PrettyLitter
Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership Fellow. Founder and CEO of PrettyLitter.
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About PrettyLitter: PrettyLitter’s lightweight litter monitors feline health by changing colors when it detects potential issues through your cat’s urine.
Cesar Johnston
CEO of Energous Corporation
Mr. Cesar Johnston joined Energous in July 2014 and serves as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. Cesar is a seasoned technologist, entrepreneur, and investor. Prior to Energous, Cesar has had a broad experience in large enterprises and startups. He has previously served as Vice President of Engineering for Wireless Connectivity at Marvell Semiconductor. During his time with Marvell, Cesar led Marvell’s worldwide R&D and development of all Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM, and NFC products. Prior to Marvell, Cesar drove technology innovation at Broadcom responsible for 802.11g and 802.11n products. Cesar has over 20 years of experience working across hardware, software, and services and is recognized as a pioneer in the technology development of multiple first-of generations of SISO and MIMO wireless products. He serves on the CTO Council for the Global Semiconductor Alliance, is an IEEE Senior Member, and is an advisory board member to KINS Technology Group. He also has written over 40 conference and journal papers and holds 25 patents.
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About Energous Corporation: Energous Corporation is the creator of WattUp, charging technology for electronic devices.
Steve Rizzone
Chairman, President & CEO of Energous Corporation
Stephen R. Rizzone serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Energous Corporation.
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About Energous Corporation: Energous Corporation is the creator of WattUp, charging technology for electronic devices.
Stina Ehrensvard
CEO & Co-Founder of Yubico
Internationally awarded entrepreneur, innovator and speaker with an unfaltering energy and passion for making the internet safer for all. Education in industrial product design at the University of the Arts, Crafts and Design, Sweden.
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About Yubico: Yubico offers USB and wireless authentication solutions.
David Lortscher
Co-Founder & CEO of Curology
David Lortscher, MD, is a licensed physician and a board-certified dermatologist. While working at a small but very busy dermatology practice in New Mexico, Dr. Lortscher saw that there were economic, geographical, and psychological barriers to seeing a dermatologist. He also noticed how changes in a person’s skin can have a tremendous impact on his or her life both socially and emotionally – and that’s when he had the idea to create Curology. Since its launch in 2014, Curology has been dedicated to removing barriers and helping people feel good about their skin. In addition to seeing patients at Curology, Dr. Lortscher serves as a remote dermatology consultant for the American Academy of Dermatology’s AccessDerm program.
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About Curology: Curology is a cosmetic company that provides actual prescription skincare customized for their skin and delivered to their door.
Jae Hoon Choi
CEO & Co-founder of Podo Labs
Jae Hoon Choi is Co-founder and CEO of Podo.
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About Exide Life Insurance, Podo Labs: We make Podo, Jack, Belle, and a whole lot more to come.
Lucas Pimenta Judice
CEO of AlmocoGratis
Lucas Pimenta Judice is the CEO at AlmoçoGrátis.
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About AlmocoGratis, Freatz: AlmocoGratis provides market maturity with access to information to small and medium-sized bars/restaurants.
Justin Wang
CEO of LARQ
Justin Wang serves as the Chief Executive Officer at LARQ.
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About LARQ: LARQ helps people access pristine drinking water easily and sustainably.
Allen Chen
CEO & Co-Founder of Fitbod
Allen is the Co-founder & CEO of Fitbod.
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About Fitbod: Fitbod allows users to maximize the use of indoor gym equipment and confidence to train effectively for strength.
Andy MacMillan
CEO of UserTesting
Andy is Chief Executive Officer of UserTesting and oversees the strategic direction of the company. Prior to joining UserTesting he was CEO of Act-On Software. Andy also held several senior leadership positions at Salesforce, including Chief Operating Officer of the Products Division and Senior Vice President & General Manager of Data.com. In both these roles he helped significantly grow customer adoption of Salesforce products and services. Prior to Salesforce, Andy was Vice President of Product Management at Oracle and Vice President of Product Marketing at Stellent (acquired by Oracle). He started his career as a software developer at EDS. Andy holds a B.A. from Michigan State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland).
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About UserTesting: UserTesting is an on-demand human insight platform designed to improve customer insights.
Greg Fleishman
Co-Founder & CEO + Board Member of Foodstirs
Greg Fleishman is the Co-Founder and CEO at Foodstirs.
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About Fata & Fleishman Mentorship, Foodstirs, Modern Alkeme, Purely Righteous Brands LLC, Springdale Ventures: Foodstirs is an omni-channel junk-free baking brand that helps people connect through the power of better-for-you sweet baked goods.
Ron Johnson
Chief Executive Officer of Enjoy
Ron Johnson is the CEO of ENJOY, which he founded in 2014. Prior to ENJOY,Ron served as CEO of JC Penney. From 2000 to 2012, Ron was on the Executive Committee at Apple and led Apple Retail. Apple stores are widely recognized as the world’s most successful retail operation with nearly 400 locations in 13 countries. From 1984 to 2000 Ron worked for Target Corporation in a variety of merchandising leadership roles. As Senior Vice President of Merchandising, Ron worked to bring good design to Target, and is credited with establishing Target as the nation’s leading upscale discount store chain. Ron received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1984 and his Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University in 1980. Ron is an active volunteer serving as a Trustee at Stanford University, as Vice Chair of Stanford Health Care and as Co-Chair of the Campaign for Stanford Medicine. Ron is also a Board Member of The Melt, Nasty Gal, Honor and is an advisor to many startups in the emerging technology and retail spaces. Ron lives in the Bay Area with his spouse Karen and has two children.
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About Enjoy: Enjoy Technology is a platform that offers same-day delivery services and operates mobile retail stores.
Nandeet Mehta
CEO & Founder of Pyur Solutions
Nandeet Mehta has been called a competitor by Forbes, and one of “The Youngest Venture Capitalist” by Huffington Post for starting his career in Venture Capital at the young age of 18. Nandeet has experience in the VC world being a Partner & Co-Founder of Prototype Capital. He was previously at Anthos Capital, Space Angels Network, and Science Inc. He graduated UCLA as an Edison Scholar and History student in 2017. During his time as a student, he had his first successful exit with Third Eye Technologies, acquired by TheBlindGuide, and co-created and co-lectured the “Self-Innovations Lab: Converting Academic Expertise to Industry Expertise” accredited class at UCLA. He was named to the University of California Office of the President 2016 “30 Under 30” for his work in Agricultural Innovation with Pyur Solutions. Nandeet was also awarded as a Kairos Society Fellow for Pyur Solutions and is the most recent addition as an Executive to Kairos Society and on the board of Wanderset. His experience also includes a myriad of internships at Fortune 500 companies and startups including Lyft, T-mobile, Ubisoft, Dell and Samsung. Mehta strives to express his passions through speaking at conferences, university events, moderating panels, and writing as a contributor to TechCrunch and Huffington Post.
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About Afore Capital, AON3D, Aura Health, Donut Media, FaZe Clan, Ghost Robotics, Grishin Robotics, Hightouch, Kiwibot, Orai, Prototype Capital, Pyur Solutions, TechCrunch, theCut, ViaBot: A cpg-focused, house of brands building a series of contemporary brands that cohesively addresses multiple touchpoints of daily life.
Hao Li
CEO & Co-Founder of Pinscreen
Hao Li is Founder and CEO of Pinscreen, Inc., and Distinguished Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, Director of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, a visiting professor at Weta Digital and a research lead at Industrial Light & Magic / Lucasfilm. For his contributions in non-rigid shape registration, human digitization, and real-time facial performance capture, Hao received the TR35 Award in 2013, recognizing him as one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35, from the MIT Technology Review. He was named Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair in 2015, and was awarded the Google Faculty Research Award and the Okawa Foundation Research Grant the same year. He won the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award in 2018. He is best known for his work on dynamic geometry processing, facial animation, and data-driven techniques for making 3D human digitization and facial animation accessible to the masses. During his PhD, Hao co-created the first real-time and markerless system for performance-driven facial animation based on depth sensors. The team later commercialized a variant of this technology as the facial animation software Faceshift (acquired by Apple Inc. in 2015 and incorporated into the iPhone X in 2017). He was brought on as visiting professor at Weta Digital to build the high-fidelity facial performance capture pipeline for reenacting the deceased actor Paul Walker in the movie Furious 7 (2015). His recent research focuses on combining techniques in Deep Learning and Computer Graphics to facilitate the creation of 3D avatars and to enable true immersive face-to-face communication and telepresence in Virtual Reality.
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About Pinscreen, University of California Berkeley: Revolutionizing digital communication and online human interactions with user-generated and personalized 3D virtual avatars.
Eric White
Chief Executive Officer of Dividend Finance
Seasoned distributed energy resources / energy transition and fintech entrepreneur with a passion for conceptualizing and designing innovative financial structures, products and business strategies that breakdown capital barriers and empower underserved markets.
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About Dividend Finance: Dividend Finance is a Technology-enabled finance platform supporting the energy transition with lending and other financial solutions.
Moawia Eldeeb
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tempo
Moawia Eldeeb is the co-founder and CEO of Tempo.
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About Tempo: Tempo is a home fitness platform, combining equipment, training guidance, and social motivation with 3D sensors and artificial intelligence.
Kim Stiefel
CEO & Co-Founder of Repeat
Kim Stiefel is the CEO and Co-Founder of PRZM.
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About Repeat: Repeat is a SaaS platform that enables consumer-packaged-goods brands to turn one-time buyers into repeat customers.
Stuart Landesberg
Co-Founder & CEO of Grove Collaborative
Stuart Landesberg is the Co-Founder & CEO of Grove Collaborative, the leading digital-first brand & ecommerce platform for natural home and personal care. Stu has long been passionate about sustainability. He founded Grove, which has been a Certified B Corp since its founding, after learning that offline distribution meant that just a small percentage of families were choosing healthy, sustainable home care products. Grove now serves hundreds of thousands of households in the U.S. every month and has raised over $100 million in total capital. Stu was previously an investor at TPG Growth, where he was involved in over $400 million in consumer and technology investments. Stu and his wife Caitlin live in San Francisco with their daughter and dog, and spend as much time outside as possible.
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About Grove Collaborative: Grove creates and curates high-performing, planet-first home and personal care products and is the leader in zero-plastic CPG.
Sargam Patel
CEO of Rite Development Lab
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About Agent18, Rite Development Lab: Changing at home coffee experience. Rite’s first product is an innovative French press (cafetière) .
Amrita Saigal
CEO & Founder of Kudos
Amrita Saigal is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kudos.
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About Kudos, Zera Life: Kudos is a retail company that offers natural disposable baby diapers with cotton liners.
Charles Prober
CEO, Board of Directors of Tile
Charles “CJ” Prober is CEO of Tile. He is an entrepreneurial leader who has a broad mix of operational, strategic and transactional experience with a strong track record of success over the past 20 years. I have a passion for building and operating consumer experiences that are at the cutting edge of hardware, media and technology.
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About Tile: Tile creates devices connected to a mobile app, helping users locate their personal items.
Anna Skaya
CEO & Founder of Basepaws
Anna Skaya is the founder and CEO of Basepaws, a provider of low-cost pet genomic products and services. Most recently, Anna was a partner and COO at breakupbuddy. She was also the founder and former CEO of Visual DNA. Prior to Visual DNA, Anna was a CEO at Groupon Russia.
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About Basepaws: Pet genetics & health monitoring.
Gower Smith
CEO & Co-Founder of Swyft
Gower Smith is the founder of ZoomSystems and Co-Chairman of the Board. Prior to starting the company in 2002, Gower founded and led several other successful technology startups, including ComputerLand (a retailer of PC and technology products, acquired by Random Access), CGF Electronics (Australian distributor for Apple computer products), Archives Computers (a networking and software company, acquired by Impact Systems), and Boomerang Imaging Supplies (a leading printing supplies business, acquired by TCR). Gower completed his radio technician certificate with the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, and studied microprocessors at the Melbourne Institute of Technology and Caulfield Institute of Technology.
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About Swyft: Swyft sells great products from leading brands in strategic high profile locations, serving customers.
Nicholas Woodman
Owner, CEO & Founder of GoPro
While the eight-person staff of GoPro was enjoying the success of their first HD HERO camera in 2009, founder and CEO Nick Woodman realized one thing: to support his vision, he was going to need a bigger staff. But before Woodman could think bigger, he had to start out small. After receiving a degree in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego, Woodman founded an online promotions company, Fun Bug. In 2001, Woodman sold Fun Bug and took off surfing and traveling the world. The decision inspired more than the personal – Woodman’s passion for surfing sparked the idea to create the now-popular wearable and gear mountable camera and in 2002, Woodman founded GoPro. After years of research and planning, the company released its first product, the GoPro HERO, a 35mm film-based camera that was worn on the wrist. Made up of some of Woodman’s friends and family members, the early GoPro team established the company as a true innovator by continually iterating on the product, moving from a film-based camera to a digital still and video camera. A lifetime extreme sports enthusiast, Woodman was learning how to race cars when he was compelled to move the camera from his wrist to the top of his car. This simple idea led to an array of camera mounting devices – for everything from helmets to surfboards, and even dog collars.
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About GoPro: GoPro is a brand of personal cameras used in extreme action video photography.
Brad Eckert
Co-Founder, CEO of Koko
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About Koko: Koko makes a device to monitor the health and safety of older adults in a completely passive way–with no wearables required.
Nick Weaver
Co-Founder and CEO of eero
Nick Weaver is Co-founder of eero inc. and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Nick Weaver is an Associate at Menlo Ventures. Nick Weaver joined Menlo in 2012 and focuses on investments in mobile, consumer internet, digital media, and enterprise software. Prior to this, Nick Weaver worked at McKinsey & Company and advised technology and private equity clients on ecommerce, go-to-market strategy, and acquisitions. While at Stanford, he was involved Stanford Student Enterprises and helped found StartX (formerly, SSE Labs).
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About eero: Eero offers a Wi-Fi system for household use.
Bentley Hall
CEO of Good Eggs
Bentley is a passionate, driven entrepreneur, who helps small consumer businesses become big – often very quickly. Ever since he was a kid, he has been fascinated with understanding how high growth companies achieve scale, disrupt industries and change the world we live in. After spending time with Johnson & Johnson and Clif Bar, he joined the Plum Organics team as employee #3 and was fortunate to hold a variety of executive roles, in multiple countries, as the business launched from $0 to ~$100+ million in annual sales in under 7 years. In 2013, the business was successfully sold to the Campbell Soup Co. Others have called him a creative problem solver, a levelheaded leader, an optimist, a self starter, a builder and a collaborator. While he is technically a certified accountant (CMA), he does not mention this at parties. Devoted to a lifetime of learning, he is continually humbled by how little he actually knew the previous year. Originally from just north of Boston, he now lives in Marin, California and spends as much time as possible outdoors (skiing, trail running, cycling, camping, stand up paddle boarding), eating tasty food and laughing with his wife, close friends and two young sons.
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About Good Eggs, Smallholding Investments: Good Eggs is an online grocer and meal kit delivery service with a mission to reinvent the food system, for good.
Vikas Gupta
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Wonder Workshop
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About Wonder Workshop: Wonder Workshop provides a platform that makes programming fun and accessible for children while they play.
Jeff Russakow
CEO of Boosted USA
Jeff Russakow is CEO of Boosted, a leading provider of lightweight, portable, high-performance electric vehicles, and an innovator in fast, fun, simple “last-mile” transportation. The company is well-known for it’s first commercial product, the Boosted Board, a premier electric longboard used by riders worldwide to speed their commutes and daily trips about town. The company is now navigating the dual challenges of extraordinary hyper-growth and international expansion, while continuing to explore new and innovative ways to get folks where they need to be. Jeff began his career as a PhD in robotics and autonomous systems; spent many formative years as a management consultant and then senior executive in large-scale tech companies including SAP, Adobe, Symantec, and Yahoo!; and in the last several years has been the CEO of three high-growth companies.
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About Boosted USA: Boosted USA builds and develops lightweight, wireless, and remote-controlled motorized electric longboards.
Christopher Sinclair
CEO of Mattel
Christopher A. Sinclair has been Chief Executive Officer since April 2015 and has served as Chairman of the Board of Mattel since January 2015. He also served as Interim Chief Executive Officer from January 2015 to April 2015. Prior to assuming the role of Chairman of the Board and Interim Chief Executive Officer, Sinclair served as the Independent Lead Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee and Chairman of the Executive Committee since 2011. From 2002 to 2008, he served as Executive Chairman of Scandent Holdings, an information technology investment company. From 2005 to 2009, he also served as Executive Chairman of Cambridge Solutions Corporation Ltd., a leader in providing information technology and business process outsourcing services. He served as a Managing Director of Manticore Partners, LLC, a venture capital advisory firm, from 2000 to 2005, as an Operating Partner of Pegasus Capital Advisors, LP, a private equity firm, from 2000 to 2002, and as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Caribiner International, Inc. from 1999 to 2000. Prior to that, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Quality Food, Inc., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pepsi-Cola Company and President and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo Foods & Beverages International and Pepsi-Cola International for more than five years.
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About Mattel: Mattel is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of toys and family products.
John Heffner
Chairman & CEO of Summer Fridays
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About Summer Fridays: Summer Fridays offers face moisturizer that contains pumpkin and apricot seed powder.
Shizu Okusa
Founder & CEO of Apothékary
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About Apothékary: Apothékary is a global plant-based farmacy that offers clean alternatives to over the counter synthetic supplements & beauty products.
Jessica Mah
Founder/CEO of inDinero
Jessica started her first internet company at the age of 13, finished high school at the age of 15, and studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. As Product Architect and CEO of Indinero.com, Jessica drives the development of Indinero’s product strategy, product development and design efforts. She designed Indinero for the typical small business owner, knowing that its usefulness and simplicity would change the way business owners look at money. Founders Jessica Mah and Andy Su built the core product over the Summer of 2009, and the company has since won grant awards from Lightspeed Venture Partners in the Summer of 2009, and from U.C. Berkeley’s CET Venture Lab in the Fall of 2009. Prior to founding Indinero, Jessica was the founder and technical lead at internshipIN.com, which has since helped thousands of college students find their first internships. Jessica studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she and co-founder Andy Su built Indinero’s first prototype. Jessica has been mentioned in publications ranging from Inc. magazine to the Wall Street Journal, and has been featured on PBS to encourage students to pursue science and entrepreneurship.
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About inDinero, XFactor Ventures: inDinero develops software that assists its users in tracking and managing their finance.
Imran Khan
Co-Founder & CEO of Verishop
Imran Khan is the Chief Strategy Officer at Snapchat.
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About Verishop: Verishop is a premium lifestyle company that offers everyday luxury in fashion, beauty, home, and more.
Chris Young
CEO of McAfee
Chris Young is CEO of McAfee, LLC. He serves as a member of the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) and is on the board of directors of American Express and Snap Inc. Chris holds an A.B. from Princeton University.
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About McAfee: McAfee is an online security company that provides virus alerts and analysis on malware, network security threats, and web vulnerabilities.
Mike Shim
Founder & CEO of True North Cos.
True North Cos. is a private investment and advisory firm building valuable, enduring businesses in technology, financial services and consumer products. Founded in 2012 by Mike Shim, a corporate/M&A lawyer-turned tech executive, entrepreneur and venture investor based in Silicon Valley, True North Cos. works with world-beating leaders at startups and Fortune 500 companies alike to build more purposeful companies. Purposeful companies share a common mission of improving the world through business, while delivering superior long-term returns to their employees, investors and the communities they serve.
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About DigiSure, Nextury Ventures, True North Cos.: Building companies with purpose.
Mark Reynoso
CEO of EcoSense Lighting
Mark Reynoso is the CEO at Ecosense Lighting.
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About EcoSense Lighting: EcoSense Lighting designs and develops lighting solutions for commercial and residential applications.
Millie Tadewaldt
Founder & CEO of Brilliant
Millie is an entrepreneur based in San Francisco. She is the founder / CEO of Brilliant, a concierge corporate gifting and branded merchandise company. Previously, she ran Operations for Fundraising Products at AngelList. She was also co-founder and CEO of CakeStyle, a high-touch, high-end personal styling service for professional women, and one of the first “fashion in a box” companies. Prior to that, she ran the Foundry at Sandbox Industries, a venture capital firm and startup incubator based in Chicago, and was a Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, where she worked with Fortune 500 companies and non-profits to develop new products, set pricing strategies, reduce costs and execute post-merger integrations. Millie holds a B.S. in Design and a B.A. in Communication from UC Davis with Highest Honors and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
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About Brilliant: Brilliant is a branded product and corporate gifting company with a focus on technology, quality, and creativity.
Stephen Luczo
CEO of Seagate Technology
Stephen Luczo serves as the Chairman of the Board, CEO and President. Luzco joined us in October 1993 as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development. In September 1997, Luczo was promoted to the position of President and Chief Operating Officer of our predecessor, Seagate Technology, Inc. and, in July 1998, he was promoted to Chief Executive Officer. Luczo resigned as our Chief Executive Officer, effective 3 July 2004, but retained his position as Chairman of the Board. In January 2009, Luczo was appointed President and CEO. Prior to joining us, Luczo was Senior Managing Director of the Global Technology Group of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., an investment banking firm, from February 1992 to October 1993.
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About Bridge Budapest, Seagate Technology: Seagate offers consumers and businesses with data storage solutions to create, share, and preserve digital content.
Jack Lee
Co-Founder and CEO of Hello Genius
Jack Lee currently works as Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Hello Genius. He is also a Board member and President of TecSync Technology (XTOUCH and INNJOO).
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About Hello Genius: Hello Genius is an app-based learning system that connects parents and children through personalized learning experiences.
Anna-Katrina Shedletsky
Founder and CEO of Instrumental
I’m the CEO of Instrumental, a company I founded to solve manufacturing’s biggest problem: the 20 to 35 cents of every dollar spent in manufacturing that is wasted. I have two degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and was an Apple Product Design Engineer for six years. I designed mechanical components for three iPods and led system product design for the Apple Watch Series 1. I spent over 300 days in China finding and fixing issues on one of the most admired manufacturing supply chains in the world. I regularly speak about the future of manufacturing and automation and write technical articles at www.instrumental.com/blog. As an advocate for increased diversity in technology, I founded the Women in STEM Mentorship Program WISMP.org in 2013, which has matched hundreds of women university students studying in STEM fields with practicing industry mentors to support their transitions into fulfilling STEM careers.
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About Instrumental: Ship hardware products on time with high-resolution manufacturing data.
Gregg Renfrew
Founder & CEO of Beautycounter
A forward-thinking serial entrepreneur, our fearless founder Gregg turns concepts into thriving businesses: She sold her successful bridal registry company, The Wedding List, to Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, where she served the company in executive management. Gregg was most recently CEO at Best & Co., a children’s retail group where she re-invigorated the traditional design retail model through brand strategy, marketing, and merchandising. Gregg has also consulted high-profile corporate retail spaces like Bergdorf Goodman, Intermix, and Lela Rose alongside entertainment clients including Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson, and Jessica Alba.
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About Beautycounter: Beautycounter is a beauty brand that distributes products through relationship networks and online.
Matthias Metternich
Founder CEO of Art of Sport
Matthias Metternich is a German-American entrepreneur based in Los Angeles and the CEO and Co-Founder of Art of Sport. Matthias’ work has been backed by notable venture capitalists including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greylock Partners and Index Ventures and featured in NYT, LA Times, NBC, Forbes, Techcrunch, Wired, FT, BBC, WWD, and Business Insider. Prior to Art of Sport, Matthias was the Founder and CEO of COCODUNE, a vertically integrated direct-to-consumer e-commerce company and Believe.in, an Enterprise Software company offering payment processing, CRM and marketing automation technology to customers in the US, UK, IE, ZA and AU. Matthias was also a Client Partner at AKQA in London and Managing Partner at Poke where he developed new products and platforms for L’Oreal, Barclays, XBox, Skype, American Express, ING Bank and Virgin. Matthias is a graduate from UCLA and the Humboldt University in Berlin.
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About Art of Sport: Art of Sport offers a complete line of daily essential body and skin care products.
David Fattal
Founder & CEO of Leia
David has had a lifelong fascination for Physics. In his early scientific career, he became an expert in the manipulation of light at the nanoscale – including single photon guns, quantum teleportation and holographic displays. Today as the CEO and Chief Innovator at Leia Inc, David has a passion for “making magic”. He gets up in the morning to share this passion with his team and the world at large.
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About Leia: Leia is an experience platform offering 3D Lightfield products and software applications.
Adam Rifkin
Co-founder, Director, and Co-CEO of PandaWhale
Adam Rifkin is co-founder and CEO of [PandaWhale](http://pandawhale.com/), an online community of interesting things and people. He is also co-founder of a 8000-person network of startup founders and engineers called [106 miles](http://meetup.com/106miles), which meets monthly in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and Southern California. From 2005 to 2009, Adam spent most of his time as co-founder and CEO of venture-backed startup [Renkoo](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/renkoo). Renkoo made Facebook and MySpace applications that were enjoyed by more than 36 million people. Adam also worked on an open source real-time Web server project called mod-pubsub with Joyce Park, his Renkoo co-founder. Adam’s career began in the 1990’s with over seven years of work at Caltech on a doctoral fellowship, sponsored in part by Microsoft and IBM. His research explored Internet-scale publish/subscribe systems and ancillary Internet-scale Event Notification Services. He left Caltech in 1999 before completing his PhD to found enterprise software company KnowNow with Rohit Khare. Adam served [KnowNow](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/knownow) in several roles over five years, including CTO, COO, VP Marketing, and VP Engineering — wherever the company most needed him at any given time. He left day-to-day operations of KnowNow in mid 2004 and joined [CommerceNet](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/commercenet), where he served as Director of Open Source Initiatives until early 2005, when he joined Joyce Park in founding Renkoo. Adam’s fifteen years of industry experience include research and development engagements at Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, the Air Force, and NASA-Langley. Adam also worked on consulting assignments for companies such as Canon, Nextel, and Sun, as Founder and Principal of 4K Associates, an alliance of Internet professionals offering strategy consulting to organizations of all sizes. Adam has authored over 30 publications in distributed & decentralized systems and event-driven architectures, receiving Best Paper awards at the IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing and the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Adam graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from the College of William and Mary; has a pair of Master’s degrees (one east coast, one west coast); and was certified as an Engineering Manager from the Caltech Industrial Relations Center in 1995. Adam’s hobbies include blogging, tweeting, letting go, falling down, reflecting, simplifying, breathing, affirming, and connecting.
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About PandaWhale, REFUNITE: PandaWhale is a consumer internet service for consuming, saving and organizing content found on the web and social networks.
Liam Casey
Founder & CEO of PCH International
Liam is the founder and CEO of PCH. He has lived 23 years in China and is recognized as a thought leader in new product introductions, supply chain orchestration, sustainability and startup initiatives. He is on the boards of the California College for the Arts, and UC Berkeley Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation.
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About PCH International: PCH provides a unique, intelligent, end-to-end product development and supply chain orchestration platform for the world’s best brands.
Aayush Phumbhra
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Nectar
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About Nectar: Nectar develops an IoT solution for the hospitality and consumer packaged goods industries.
Joseph Huang
CEO of StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund)
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About StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund): StartX is an educational non-profit that helps Stanford’s top entrepreneurs.
Aaron Emigh
Co-founder & CEO of Brilliant
Aaron Emigh is the co-founder and CEO of Brilliant. He was previously co-founder and CTO of shopkick, EVP and GM of Technology at Six Apart, CTO of Rojo Networks, Managing Director of Radix Labs, and CEO of CommerceFlow. Aaron is a seasoned entrepreneur with four acquisitions and one IPO. He has over 90 issued US patents, has been named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, and has presented original research at numerous conferences and research colloquia, including RSA, APWG, DIMACS, TIPPI, SFECTF, ISSA, MAAWG, ITTC, and the AAAS. Aaron has served as a member of the US Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force and the US-DHS Infosec Technology Transition Council, a Research Fellow of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, and a technical advisor to the Financial Services Technology Consortium.
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About Brilliant: We make the Brilliant Control, a smart home control system that replaces an existing light switch.
Nikhil Arora
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Back to the Roots
Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez are the co-founders of Back to the Roots (Oakland, CA). Back to the Roots is on a mission to reconnect families to food through its innovative and award winning Ready-to-Grow line (Mushroon Mini Farm, Water Garden, Garden-in-a-Can) and a new Ready-to-Eat line (Organic Stoneground Flakes breakfast cereal, Breakfast Toppers). The products are sold in over 8000 stores nationwide, including Whole Foods, Target, The Home Depot, Costco, Nordstrom, Petco, and Amazon. Nikhil & Alejandro have also been recognized for their leadership in social entrepreneurship and food innovation by Forbes 30 Under 30, INC 30 under 30, BusinessWeek’s Top 25 Social Entrepreneurs, INC 500, CNN’s 10 Next Gen Entrepreneurs to Watch, Martha Stewart’s Top 10 American Made, and President Obama’s Champions of Change. The company was founded by the duo during their last semester of college at UC Berkeley.
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About Back to the Roots: Back to the Roots offers gardening kits to grow organic and gourmet mushrooms at homes.
Denis Mars
Co-founder and CEO of Proxy
Denis Mars, CEO & Co-Founder Before Proxy, Mars was the Director of Admissions at Y Combinator, responsible for initiating programs to help discover and evaluate the most promising founders and ideas that could change the world for the better. Prior to Y Combinator, Mars founded Meetings.io, which was acquired by Jive, founded an automotive startup, and was a chief engineer for the champion winning Formula 3 race team. Mars has a B.S. in Physics and a B.E. Honors in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Sydney. Startup founder, YC alum. Physics, Mech Engineering, Code, Design, UI/UX, Products. Likes to engineer the impossible and disrupt the status quo. Tech Startups: •Y Combinator Alum – Embedster Inc W2010 •Y Combinator Alum – Bitplay Inc (Meetings.io) W2011 •Meetings.io acquired by Jive (NASDAQ:JIVE) in 2012 Other accomplishments: •Modena Inc – Acquired by Auto Group in 2005 •3Jive Inc – Music Platform Technology •Roxentric – Indie Record Label •Formula 3 Racing – Chief Engineer 2x championship wins •Formula SAE – Team Lead 2001 winning team
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About Proxy: Access More, Share Less. Proxy designs and builds privacy-first, human-led, identity technologies. With Proxy ID, your world is now open.
Justin Wickett
CEO and Co-founder of Informed.IQ
Justin Wickett is the CEO and Co-founder at Informed.IQ.
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About Informed.IQ: Informed is a developer of a consumer auto financing platform designed to collect and analyze loan documents.
Steven B. Dunn
CEO of Munchkin
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About Munchkin: Munchkin is an online store selling products for parents, babies and pets.
Bracken Darrell
CEO of Logitech
Bracken Darrell joined Logitech as president in 2012 and became chief executive officer a year later. In this role he has led a transformation of Logitech. He is a proponent of the importance of the liberal arts and design in business, especially of their role in innovating product experiences for consumers. He is an English major from Hendrix College. Bracken brings to Logitech experience in product and brand building through design. He has worked around the world on iconic brands like Old Spice, Gillette and Braun, for which he was president. He has spent time at P&G, GE, Gillette, and Whirlpool. Since he took over five years ago, Logitech has been a top performer on the SIX Swiss stock exchange and on the NASDAQ. The company’s stock price and profits have more than quadrupled in the same period.
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About Logitech: Logitech designs and manufactures personal peripherals for the needs of personal computer and laptop users.
Fahim Aziz
Founder & CEO of Backpack
Hacker at Backpack
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About Backpack, Kyokushin Wooster: Backpack is a website that connects travelers and shoppers globally.
Eran Gilad
President & CEO of Fuel Cycle
Eran Gilad is a managing partner at Scopus Ventures. Previously, he was the founding CEO of Tracx, Vice President of BD at Starhome (NASDAQ: XURA), and management consultant at Bohlin & Stromberg Sweden (Formerly KPMG). Mr. Gilad is a member on the board of Think Passenger Inc. and the Israeli Mobile Association (IMA) as well as a mentor at Alchemist Incubator. He served five years at the Israeli Defense Forces and holds an engineering degree from Coventry University, England and an MBA from Lund University, Sweden.
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About Fuel Cycle: Fuel Cycle’s Market Research Cloud integrates human insight with critical business data for actionable intelligence.
Dan Laufer
CEO of PipeDreams Ventures
Dan is co-founder of PipeDreams Ventures. He previously led Growth and Product Marketing and Nextdoor and was cofounder of RentLingo, the apartment search site.
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About PipeDreams Ventures, RentLingo: PipeDreams Ventures is a venture-backed company building tech-powered home services providers.
Sam Liang
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Otter.ai
Sam is the CEO/Co-Founder of Otter.ai Inc, based in Silicon Valley. Funded by Spectrum Equity, Horizons Ventures (DeepMind, Waze, Zoom, Facebook), Tim Draper, David Cheriton of Stanford (first investor in Google), etc. AISense has created Ambient Voice Intelligence™ technologies with deep learning that understands human-to-human conversations. Its Otter.ai product digitizes all voice meetings and video conferences, makes every conversation searchable and also provides speech analytics and insights. Otter.ai is the exclusive provider of automatic meeting transcription for Zoom Video Communications. Previously, Sam was the CEO and Co-Founder of Alohar Mobile Inc in Palo Alto, California, which created world’s first mobile location context platform. Alohar was later successfully acquired by Alibaba. Before that, Sam was the lead of Google Map Location Platform & API for four years. Sam got his Ph.D in EE from Stanford University, specialized in large scale distributed Internet systems.
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About Otter.ai: Otter.ai improves business team productivity by providing an app to capture, share and recall all of your meeting notes.
Florian Bohn
CEO & Co-Founder of GuRu
Florian has always felt compelled to understand the way the world works. His curiosity moved him to study Electrical Engineering at Caltech (B.S. Cum Laude), to receive an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UC Santa Barbara, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech. At GuRu, Florian is thrilled to be building technology that will enrich people’s lives on a global scale. He is also proud to be building a community of passionate and like-minded engineers at the organization. As a co-founder and CEO at GuRu, Florian brings years of technology experience. At Axiom Microdevices, he helped define and implement high-frequency RF integrated circuits which have shipped more than 400 million units. At Agilent Laboratories (formerly HP Labs) he worked on clock and data recovery circuits as well as novel test and measurement systems. As a Caltech Lead Scientific Researcher, Florian guided engineering and operational aspects of implementing the microwave system at Caltech’s Space Solar Power Initiative.
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About GuRu: Enables safe, effective and customizable transmission of power over-the-air using proprietary mmWave and Smart RF Lensing technology
Armen Adjemian
Co-Founder & CEO of DISQO
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About DISQO, Survey Junkie: DISQO develops an audience insights platform designed to connect brands and people.
Hugo de Gentile
Co-Founder & CEO of Willo
Hugo de Gentile is the Co-Founder and CEO at Willo
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About Willo: Willo develops technology in oral health that automatically empowers everyone to achieve the best at-home clean possible.
Anthemos Georgiades
CEO and co-founder of Zumper
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About Zumper: Zumper is a software platform that connects people with real estate rental properties.
Alvin Yap
Co-Founder & CEO of Airship
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About Airship: Airship is a modern product flagging framework that gives the right people total control over what your customers see and experience.
Guy Primus
CEO of Valence Community
Guy Primus is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Virtual Reality Company (VRC), a market leader in the production and distribution of cinematic Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality content. Guy’s co-founders in VRC include two-time Oscar winner Robert Stromberg, who directed Disney’s Maleficent, and Chris Edwards, the CEO of previsualization studio The Third Floor. Prior to co-founding VRC, Guy was Chief Operating Officer at Overbrook Entertainment, the film and television production company founded by actor Will Smith and producer James Lassiter. Before joining Overbrook, Guy served as director of digital media at Starbucks Entertainment, group product marketing manager at Microsoft’s MSN Entertainment, and as vice president of strategy & planning at Blue Flame, the marketing and advertising agency founded by Sean “Diddy” Combs. Guy is chairman emeritus of the advisory board of Georgia Tech’s top-ranked School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and is a member of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board. Guy is also a member of the board of trustees of Southern California Public Radio, Park Century School and The VR Society, and is a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (The Emmys). Guy earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech and his MBA from Harvard Business School. Guy, his wife, Heather, their son, Grant, and their daughter, Clarke, reside in the Beachwood Canyon area of Los Angeles.
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About The Virtual Reality Company, Valence Community: Valence is an internet company that connects, showcases, and empowers the global black professional community.
Charles Kim
CEO of CRAVE Global
Charles Kim currently works as Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Crave Global, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Extol Capital, Executive Vice-Chairman of the Black Kestral Group, and is a Steering Committee Member of the White Kestral Summit.
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About Black Kestral Group, China Renaissance, CRAVE Global: CRAVE Global is a full-service celebrity platform that represents celebrities, influencers, sports, and entertainment properties in China.
Thomas Smyth
Founder & CEO of Trim
Thomas founded Trim in 2015 to (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ on retail banking and improve Americans’ financial health at scale. Previously, Thomas invested in fintech start-ups in the U.S. and sold solar-powered appliances to rural households in Zambia.
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About Trim: Trim is a financial health company that empowers customers across the United States to improve their financial lives.
Jugoslav Petkovic
Co-founder and CEO of Flaviar
Jugoslav Petkovic is founder at Flaviar.
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About Flaviar: Flaviar, a spirits tasting club, offers a subscription service that helps members discover new liquor products through sample tasting packs.
Joshua Wyss
Co-Founder & CEO of Inclined Technologies
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About Granite Peak, Inclined Technologies: Inclined pioneers a new form of lending in a large and vastly underserved market.
Dhanush Balachandran
Founder & CEO of Sortly
Founder, Sortly • Former: Marketing @Intel , iOS apps lead @Jiff • Self taught coding • Reinventing people’s relationship with physical stuff through technology
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About Sortly: Sortly is the leading “mobile centric” inventory platform that is simplifying how businesses and consumers keep track of their stuff.
Jason Hardi
Founder & CEO of Muzik
Jason Hardi is the visionary founder & CEO of Muzik, a hardware & software (“Smartware”) platform that is powering a new generation of connected, intelligent, wearable ambient technology. Jason and his team have created the worlds first smart headphone that seamlessly integrates with 3rd party apps and controls all connected devices. He invented the first motion controlled peripherals that send motion tracking data in real time without any latency. Over the last 5 years Jason has invented & designed many disruptive consumer electronic products, received 5 CES Innovation Awards, and has been issued several patents. In 2016, Jason and his team successfully launched and sold out of their first product (Muzik One) in Best Buy, Amazon, Brookstone, and Jet. He was the keynote speaker at the Microsoft Developer Build Conference in 2015 & 2016, and has been featured in Huffington Post, Billboard, Rolling Stone, TechCrunch, USA Today, Innovation & Tech Today and many other media outlets. Jason has successfully raised over $80 for Muzik, funded by some of the most strategic partners, industry leaders, celebrities, professional athletes, and Twitter. Jason graduated with a Bachelor of Science from NCSU, with concentrations in finance and marketing.
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About Muzik: Creators of The Worlds First Smart headphones designed to connect artists, fans, and brands like never before.
Jeff Scheur
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of NoRedInk
Jeff Scheur After teaching high school English for 8 years and grading 15,000 papers, Jeff created NoRedInk to help his students improve their grammar and writing skills. A National Board Certified Teacher, former debate director, and speaker on education innovation, he is intent on improving the feedback loop in classrooms and empowering students to become skilled, creative, and confident writers. He holds an MA in Education from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a BA from Oberlin College.
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About NoRedInk: NoRedInk is a web-based learning platform supporting students to improve their grammar and writing skills.
Tim Saval
Founder & CEO of Plural.com
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About OnDeck, Plural.com: Plural is reinventing the way the world “works”.
Raul Polakof
Founder & CEO of Scanntech
Raul Polakof is Founder & CEO at Scanntech.
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About Scanntech: Scanntech provides point-of-sale software to retail stores.
Meidad Sharon
Founder and CEO of ChargeAfter
Meidad is a long-time high-tech industry veteran and a sought-after conference speaker. As the Vice President of Marketing for the SafeCharge International Group, Meidad has a wealth of experience with financial and forex industries. Meidad is an expert at demonstrating how simple payment processing and fraud prevention solutions can meet complex needs, and lead to maximum profitability and a seamless end-user experience.
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About ChargeAfter: ChargeAfter is the global multi-lender network for point-of-sale financing.
Nathan Hubbard
CEO and Co-Founder of Rival
CEO at Rival.
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About Rival: Rival is a technology company building a platform for live events.
Ben Lewis
Co-Founder + CEO of Little Spoon
A serial entrepreneur, Ben Lewis’ experience lies at the intersection of brands, technology and food. He has worked extensively in the organic food industry, honing a well-rounded understanding of consumer facing brands and what it takes to build them. Ben has helped pioneer trends like cold-pressed juice and cold-brew coffee, taking them from obscure, emerging concepts to household buzzwords. Ben’s first foray into business was in high school when he founded a charitable bottled water company out of the back of his car. As a student at Wharton, he co-founded The Epic Seed, a Greek yogurt brand with a national footprint and a cult-like following. Most recently, Ben built a national distribution company which acted as an incubator to up-and-coming food and beverage brands. Over the course of four years, Ben grew the company from zero to $25 million in revenue and a team of 75 people, building a nimble just-in-time supply chain spanning eight regions. Ben’s accomplishments are a direct result of his willingness to innovate and use unorthodox solutions to transform businesses. Through his many experiences, Ben has developed a deep understanding of the obstacles and demands unique to modern consumer products marketed to a younger generation—especially those related to food. Today, Ben is the co-founder and CEO of the direct-to-consumer startup Little Spoon, the first company to offer fresh, nutritionally optimized meal plans suited to the evolving needs of growing babies. Ben is passionate about design, healthy living, food of all types, and creating processes that run smoothly.
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About Kairos, Little Spoon: Little Spoon designs products for a child’s most formative years, starting with a baby’s first bites.
Mark Mastalir
Co-CEO & Chief Marketing Officer of Halo Neuroscience
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About Halo Neuroscience: Halo Neuroscience is a neurotech company focused on using electrical neurostimulation to unlock human performance and treat human disease
Johnny Hou
Founder / CEO of NZXT
Johnny Ho is a Founder and CEO at NZXT. He is also Co-Founder at Acaia. Mr. Ho received a bachelor of science in Computer Engineering at UC Irvine.
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About Acaia, NZXT: NZXT builds PC hardware for enthusiasts and gamers globally.
Susan Ehrlich
Chief Executive Officer of Earnest
Susan’s experience in financial services spans from traditional banking to fintech. In addition to her role as Chief Executive Officer at Earnest, Susan serves as Chairman of the Board of BECU, the nation’s 4th largest credit union. Previously, she was Chief Financial Officer and Head of Enterprise Risk Management at Simple Financial Technology, a BBVA subsidiary. Susan also spent years immersed in fintech, as a consultant for Lending Club and as a General Manager for Amazon. Susan was recognized on “American Banker”magazine’s 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance list three years in a row, and has served as Chairman of the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) in Chicago, IL and on the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC. Susan holds a B.A. with honors in organizational behavior and management from Brown University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
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About BECU, Earnest: Earnest is a technology-lender that brings low-interest loans to high-potential people.
Ale Resnik
Co-founder and CEO of Belong
Alejandro “Ale” Resnik (born April 18, 1982) is an Argentine-born American serial entrepreneur. Ale is the Founder and CEO of Belong, a US plattform for long term home renting. Resnik’s third company was Beepi, a peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling automobiles. In 2017, Ale joined venutre capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as Founder in Residence. In 2014, Resnik was named a Top Innovator Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review. Early life and education Resnik was raised in Argentina and at the age of 18, he founded his first start up, a domain registrar named LatinDominios.com.] In 2000, he received an undergraduate degree in Information Technology from ORT in Argentina and in 2006, a MSc in industrial engineering from the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (Instituto Tecnologico de Buenos Aires).In 2011, Resnik entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 2013, graduated with an MBA from the Sloan School of Management in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Track. Global Vitamins In 2005, Resnik founded Global Vitamins, LTD, and became its CEO. The subscription-based e-commerce company, which sold vitamins and nutritional supplements directly to consumers, marketed to clients in Latin America and Europe. Resnik sold the 75-person company in 2011 to attend MIT. Beepi He co-founded Beepi, a “peer-to-peer” online used-car marketplace that failed to raise additional funding to operate and was sold off in January 2017. After exiting Beepi, Ale joined Venture Capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, based in Menlo Park, as Founder in Residence. Awards Top Innovator Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review in 2014. A jury member for the MIT Technology Review prize said the Resnik had created “an innovative model and disruptor for the American market” and added that the Beepi project has contributed “innovation in the field of electronic commerce.” In 2015, Resnik was named by Pulse to the LinkedIn “New Wave List” of the top 10 professionals under 35 influencing “what and how we drive.” Ale was awarded an academic merit scholarship at the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology and the MIT Legatum Fellowship for Development and Entrepreneurship;
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About Andreessen Horowitz, Belong: Belong is a residential network that vertically integrates all aspects of the home rental and home improvement process.
Charles Michael Yim
Founder and CEO of Breathometer
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About Breathometer, CMY Ventures, Cohabit Labs, Inc., Cointopia, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, VitaBowl, Walt Disney Television: Breathometer develops a breath analysis technology that helps people make smarter decisions and improve their lives.
Nate Phillips
Co-Founder & CEO of Nom Nom
Nate is Nom Nom’s co-founder and CEO. A lawyer by training, Nate has held a variety of in-house counsel positions across several investment banks, hedge funds and asset managers. Nate received his BA, summa cum laude, from the University of California, Irvine, and his JD from University of California, Berkeley.
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About Nom Nom: We make real food to support healthier, longer lives for folks with paws. Because what’s good for people is good for pets too.
Stas Tushinskiy
CEO & Co-founder of Instreamatic
Stas is CEO and Founder at Instreamatic.AI. Prior to Instreamatic, Stas pioneered digital audio ads market in Russian-speaking countries and built Unisound – a leading digital audio ads sales house and headed business development of a leading mobile music streaming service in Eastern Europe.
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About Instreamatic: Voice Marketing Platform
Abhay Gupta
Founder & CEO of Bidgely
Abhay Gupta founded Bidgely with the mission to accomplish energy efficiency at a massive scale. He’s worked at a combination of energy and technology companies including Grid Net, Echelon and Sun Microsystems. He holds a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, M.S. from University of Southern California and MBA from Santa Clara University. Abhay is passionate about music and travel!
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About Bidgely: Bidgely leverages the power of AI to optimize utility customer engagement and is the choice of leading utilities
Stefan Lederer
Co-Founder & CEO of Bitmovin
Stefan Lederer is co-founder and Head of Business of bitmovinin 2012, a company which focuses on products, cloud services and consulting in the area of adaptive HTTP streaming. He received his B.Sc. (Bakk.) in Information Management in Aug’10, his M.Sc. (Dipl.-Ing.) in Computer Science in Mar’12 and his M.Sc. (Mag.) in Marketing and International Management in Jun’13, all with distinction from the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. He gained practical and international expertise in various companies (IBM, McKinsey&Company, Dolby, Hillside, Ilogs, etc.) and has a strong business focus in marketing and international management. He founded his first company in 2008 and led several IT projects in central and eastern Europe. In his position of an Assistant Professor at the Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Institute of Information Technology (ITEC), Multimedia Communication Group he participated in several EC-funded projects (ALICANTE, SocialSensor). His research topics include transport of modern/rich media, multimedia adaptation, QoS/QoE as well as future internet architectures and he has published more than 20 papers in these areas. He participated in the MPEG-DASH standardization, contributed several open source tools (DASHEncoder, DASHoverCCN VLC plugin) and datasets.
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About Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Bitmovin: Bitmovin is a multimedia technology company providing adaptive streaming video infrastructure for global digital media companies.
Zach Supalla
Founder & CEO of Particle
Zach Supalla is the founder and CEO of Particle, an IoT startup that’s making it easier to build, connect and manage internet-connected hardware products deployed at massive scale. Supalla earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and an MEM (masters in engineering management) from the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern. Before Particle, Supalla worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, advising Fortune 500 companies on strategy, operations and product development. He is a graduate of HAX, the world’s first, and most prolific hardware accelerator.
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About Particle: Particle provides hardware and software tools to help users prototype, scale, and manage IoT products.
Sarah Hoffman
Co-Founder & CEO of Maker Wine
Sarah Hoffman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Maker Wine.
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About Maker Wine: Maker Wine connects wine lovers to premium canned wines from best-in-class independent producers.
Louis H. Borders
Founder, CEO of Mercury Startups
Mr. Louis H. Borders is a Founder of Mercury Capital Management, LLC. Mr. Borders founded MyWire, Inc. (Keepmedia Inc.) and serves as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He revolutionized the retail book industry with the founding of Borders, the first book and music superstore chain. Mr. Borders developed the advanced information systems used by the MyWire to manage inventory across diverse geographic and demographic regions. Mr. Borders serves as Principal of Mercury Capital Management, an investment firm. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Webvan from December 1996 to September 1999. He founded Borders Books, a retail bookstore chain in 1971 and served as President and Chief Executive Officer until 1983. He has more than 30 years of experience as a successful entrepreneur. Mr. Borders co-founded Synergy Software in November 1989. He founded Mercury Capital Management in 1995 and serves as its Chairman. He serves as Chairman of KeepMedia Inc. He served as Chairman of the Board of Webvan since December 1996. He served as Chairman of Borders Books from 1983 to 1992. He served as director of Synergy Software, a software consulting company from November 1989 to November 1997. He served as a Director of Webvan Group until February 2001. Mr. Borders holds a B.A in Mathematics from the University of Michigan and completed graduate coursework in mathematics at MIT.
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About Home Delivery Service (HDS Global), Mercury Startups: Mercury’s comprehensive approach for large-scale startup development formalizes effective processes employed by successful precedents.
Clay Alexander
Founder and CEO of Ember Technologies
Clay Alexander is an American inventor and serial entrepreneur who holds more than 100 patents worldwide and is the Founder and CEO of Ember, a global consumer electronics brand and maker of the World’s First Temperature Control Mug. As a lifelong entrepreneur, Alexander started his first company, Radiance Lightworks, in 1999 at the age of 23. It has become one of the top lighting design firms in the country, boasting an extensive client list which includes Universal Studios, Mattel and 20th Century Fox. He then launched his second company, Journée Lighting, in 2005 and created the world’s first LED track light. He scaled it to be one of the most respected brands in LED lighting and it was during this time that Alexander also invented General Electric’s LED light bulb, the GE Infusion™. With decades of experience building and scaling successful companies, Alexander combined both his business savvy and talent as a world-class inventor to launch Ember.
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About Ember Technologies, Radiance Lightworks: Ember Technologies is a design-led temperature control brand that produces a patented temperature adjustable dishware and drinkware.
Alexi Suvacioglu
Co-Founder & CEO of Because Market
Alexi Suvacioglu focuses on product and customer acquisition, perfecting the art of CAC vs LTV. Prior to ZenDeals, Alexi cofounded and sold a VC-funded ecommerce business, was a Senior Manager of Internet Marketing at eBay, and spent 6 years doing technology consulting at Accenture in its Consumer practice. Alexi holds an MBA from Stanford and a BA from Kings College London (Honors).
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About Because Market: Because is personal care direct-to-consumer company focused on meeting the needs of older adults.
Damian Langere
CEO / Co-Founder of Domuso
Damian Langere is Founder at Domuso Inc.
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About Domuso, Gelt Venture Capital, Gelt, Inc.: Domuso is a next-gen financial services platform offering comprehensive payment processing solutions for multifamily properties.
Chris Clifford
Founder & CEO of Day One Beverages
CPG founder and investor
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About Building Blocks Ventures, Day One Beverages, HED Skincare, Transcend Digital: Anything is possible on Day One. There’s no baggage or expectations and no limits on your imagination. Every day can be Day One if you want it to be. We created a simple, refreshing and effective beverage formula for balance and clarity. Sparkling Water + Cannabinoids
