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 United States based CEO’ operating in the Messaging 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.
Brian Long
Co-Founder and CEO of Attentive
Brian Long is the co-founder and CEO of Attentive. He previously was the CEO of TapCommerce. Prior to TapCommerce, Brian led mobile products at Pontiflex, a mobile advertising company. At Pontiflex, Brian conceived of the mobile ad product, brought it to market, and scaled it across thousands of mobile apps. Prior to Pontiflex, Brian held various sales management roles at CNET.com (acquired by CBS Interactive), where he worked closely with large advertisers like Dell, Samsung, and AT&T to build performance-based interactive advertising programs.Brian has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently on-leave from NYU, with half of an MBA in Finance & Entrepreneurship.
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About Attentive: Attentive is a personalized mobile messaging platform for innovative brands and organizations.
Paul Davison
Co-Founder and CEO of Clubhouse
Paul Davison is the Co-Founder and CEO of Clubhouse. Davison is a San Diego native who graduated from Stanford and then earned his MBA from Stanford Business School. He had an internship at Google between degrees. Davison worked at consulting firm Bain and Co. before joining database startup Metaweb, which was acquired by Google in 2010. Previously he was an entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital.
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About Clubhouse, Clubhouse: Clubhouse is an audio-based social app that allows users to spontaneously join group chats.
Eric Yuan
Founder & CEO of Zoom
Eric Yuan founded Zoom in 2011 to deliver happiness and bring teams together in a frictionless video environment. Zoom’s video-first unified communications platform continues to dramatically transform the way leading global enterprises communicate. Under Eric’s leadership, Zoom was one of the highest-performing tech IPOs of 2019. Prior to founding Zoom, Eric was corporate vice president of engineering at Cisco, where he was responsible for Cisco’s collaboration software development. Eric was one of the founding engineers and vice president of engineering at Webex. Between 1997 and 2011, he grew his team from 10 engineers to more than 800 worldwide and contributed to revenue growth from $0 to more than $800M. Eric has been named one of the Most Powerful People in Enterprise Tech by Business Insider. In 2018, he was named the #1 CEO of a large US company by Glassdoor and EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California (software category). In 2019, he was added to the Bloomberg 50 as a leader who changed the game in global business. Eric is a named inventor on 11 issued and 20 pending patents in real-time collaboration.
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About Zoom: Zoom is a software company that offers a communications platform that connects people through video, voice, chat, and content sharing.
Evan Spiegel
Co-Founder and CEO of Snap
Evan Spiegel is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Snap Inc. Spiegel graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Product Design. Snap Inc. is a camera company and believes that reinventing the camera represents their greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Their products empower people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world and have fun together.
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About Snap, Toyopa Group, LLC: Snap operates as a privately-owned multinational camera company focusing on multinational technology and social media.
Joe Thomas
Co-founder and CEO of Loom
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About Loom: Loom is a work communication tool that enables its users to get a message across instantly shareable videos.
Moxie Marlinspike
Founder & CEO of Signal Messenger
Moxie Marlinspike is the founder of Signal and Open Whisper Systems. He is a renowned cyber security expert and cryptographer. Moxie is known for his in-depth research of online privacy and anonymity issues. Moxie is also a member of the Institute for Disruptive Studies, and was formerly the Director of Product Security at Twitter.
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About Signal Messenger: Signal is an encrypted communications application for Android and iOS that focuses on advancing secure communications.
Richard Smullen
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Pypestream
Richard is the CEO and founder of Pypestream, a secure mobile messaging platform that uses real-time chat to transform the way brands and businesses connect with customers. Through ‘Pypes’ listed in a searchable catalogue, businesses are provided with a direct connection to their customers for increased engagement, automated customer service, and in-message payment processing. The ultimate customer engagement tool, further loyalty is derived by using proprietary AI and chatbot technology to allow conversations at scale. A serial entrepreneur, Richard previously co-founded Genesis Media LLC, a real-time video advertising platform, and is a board member of SouthWinston LLC, a New York-based, global private equity and VC fund.
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About dhomain llc, Pypestream, SouthWinston: Pypestream is conversational artificial intelligence built for scale.
James Yoder
CEO & Founder of Chat Sports
James Yoder is CEO of Chat Sports and founder of Chat Sports Studios. Prior to co-founding Chat Sports, he worked for Verizon Wireless as a Mobile Product Manager. Focusing on Verizon’s Android and iOS products, James has vast experience at the forefront of mobile industry technology. Prior to Verizon, he worked for the college sports giant, Rivals.com. James graduated with a degree in Business Management from the University of Toledo. As an angel investor, James has 4 portfolio exits. All investments to date have been consumer focused.
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About Chat Sports: Chat Sports is a live sports news network for digital platforms
Katherine Wells
Founder, CEO of Serenity Engage
Katherine Wells is the Founder and CEO at Serenity Engage.
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About CodeBaby, Mavericks, Serenity Engage: Serenity Engage is a HIPAA-compliant messaging app platform for senior care.
Samir Diwan
Cofounder/CEO of Polly
CEO/Cofounder at Polly
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About Polly: Polly is a survey platform that makes it simple for anyone to engage with colleagues, capture feedback, and make more data-driven decisions.
Phil Gordon
Founder and CEO of Prompt.io
Phil Gordon is CEO and founder of Jawfish Games, the industry leader in real-time multi-player tournaments for mobile and web. Phil is best known as a professional poker player. He hosted 42 episodes of Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown, has appeared at 7 World Series of Poker final tables, and has won a World Poker Tour tournament. Phil has authored four books that have sold nearly 400,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into 12 languages. Phil currently resides in Newport Washington with his wife and two boys, Xander and Zachary.
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About Prompt.io: Prompt.io is a simple, scalable solution for communicating with customers in their preferred medium messaging.
Winder Hughes
Founder and CEO of Relevnt, Inc.
Winder Hughes is the founder and CEO of Relevnt. he is also the current founder & CEO of LIFE IN HI-FI, Inc. Winder evangelizes Order and Vision with great attention to detail alongside a nose for detecting danger. Driven by an entrepreneurial mindset, Winder has over 25 years of investing experience in start-up companies, and founded Relevnt as an outgrowth from his investment partnership, the Focus Fund. He is fascinated by what makes a brand become a global success and thus his lifelong passion has been to create a world-class consumer brand experience that favorably changes the human condition – he has found it with Relevnt. Winder graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a BA in Economics.
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About Relevnt, Inc.: Relevnt is a live audio chat network centered real-time, authentic connection.
Brian Grey
CEO of Remind
Brian Grey serves as the Executive in Residence for Polaris Venture Partners. Grey moved to Polaris from Fox Sports Interactive, where he was Senior Vice President and General Manager.
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About Remind, Spright: Remind is a communication platform that helps every student succeed.
Dan Reich
Co-founder, CEO of Troops
Dan has started and been involved with companies that have collectively raised over $100M in venture capital and have exited for close to $1B in M&A, including companies like Buddy Media, Spinback and Lotame.As a result, he has extensive experience in startups, technology, business operations, financing, management, and scaling large teams. He’s a contributing writer for Forbes and Harvard Business Review. In March 2015, Dan co-founded Troops, a venture-backed technology company that gives professionals a mobile sales assistant powered by artificial intelligence. In early 2015 he was also selected to receive an Early Career Award by a vote of the College of Engineering Leadership Council at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. In 2014, Dan co-founded TULA, a health and beauty brand exclusively sold through QVC. He has led the company as active CEO from inception to over $1mm in sales in less than one year. In 2012 Business Insider named him on the top 100 of “one of the coolest people in New York tech.” In 2011 he co-founded Spinback, which was acquired by Buddy Media, which was then acquired by Salesforce.com in 2012, marking New York’s second largest technology acquisition ever. Dan led Spinback as the COO and upon acquisition, led part of Buddy Media’s accounts team, representing $40mm in business. Before Spinback, Dan was an early employee at Lotame leading new business development efforts and helping to grow the business from less than 10 employees and $0 in revenue to 80+ employees and 8 digits of revenue. In college, he co-founded two companies, studied and researched photonics, and was awarded the “Inaugural Accenture Leadership Award” for launching Accenture’s first ever Leadership Center in UW-Madison. In high school, Dan worked for an IT firm specializing in custom networks and systems, built award winning autonomous fire fighting robots, wrestled, played soccer, and joined the Mount Snow Ski Patrol as the youngest patroller nationwide.
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About Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Forbes, Spinback, Troops, TULA: Troops provides a Salesforce automation platform used to improve sales velocity, forecast, visibility, and collaboration.
Derek Ting
CEO of TextNow
Derek Ting is the co-founder and CEO of TextNow.Prior to that, Derek served as a software engineer at Qualcomm and Phoenix Interactive Design Inc. Derek founded WoolNet LLC.
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About TextNow: Our mission is to break down the barriers to communication and free the flow of conversation for people everywhere.
Weiting Liu
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Codementor
Weiting Liu is the founder & CEO of Codementor, a live help marketplace for developers. Weiting is a serial entrepreneur and an alumnus of both Y Combinator (YC ’07 SocialPicks, ’12) and Techstars (Seattle ’13 Codementor).
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About Arc.Dev, Codementor, Global Social, Peeridea: Codementor is an online marketplace connecting developers with experts for on-demand 1:1 help via screen sharing, video, and text chat.
Eric Rea
CEO and Co-Founder of Podium
Eric Rea is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Podium.
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About Podium: Podium is a customer communication platform for businesses who interact with customers on a local level.
Matt Galligan
Co-founder & CEO of XMTP
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About 1% of Nothing, XMTP: XMTP is a communication protocol and network that connects communities, creators, protocols, applications, and users.
Daniel Machock
CEO of Outspoken
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About Appetize, Outspoken, Outspoken: Outspoken is the most experienced SMS and MMS messaging platform in the US.
Matt Sunbulli
Co-Founder & CEO of Fishbowl
Matt Sunbulli is Cofounder, CEO and Chief Product officer of Fishbowl, a a social network that connects professionals within companies and industries to have workplace conversations. Fishbowl was acquired by Recruit Holdings Co., which also owns Indeed.com and Glassdoor, in 2021. Previously he was CEO and Cofounder of Social Amp, the first CRM platform optimizing Facebook’s Open Graph for business. Social Amp was acquired by Merkle Inc., a leader in CRM database marketing, in February 2012. Matt’s work has been showcased at the Direct Marketing Association Conference and Exhibition, ad:tech Digital Marketing Conference and Facebook’s F8 Developers Conference. Social Amp’s work with Levi’s, Estee Lauder and 1-800-Flowers.com has been widely showcased in the social commerce industry. Prior to Social Amp, Matt served as a digital product manager at Viacom MTV Networks where he pioneered the release of new digital and social technologies and launched the first video blog. He is a graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.
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About Fishbowl, Fishbowl: Fishbowl is a social network that connects professionals within relevant communities to have candid and relevant conversations.
Mikael Yang
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of ManyChat
Mikael Yang is the Co-Founder and CEO of ManyChat – a platform that helps businesses and professionals engage their audience through messaging apps.
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About ManyChat: ManyChat helps businesses do marketing, sales and support through Facebook Messenger.
Mike Chen
CEO, Co-Founder of Magic
Mike Chen is the CEO at Magic
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About Bettir, Magic: Magic provides a 24/7 SMS based on-demand personal assistant service.
Shayan Nafisi
Co-Founder and CEO of Curogram
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About Curogram: A HIPAA Telemedicine & Two-Way Text Communication Platform, Curogram Streamline Patient Communication and will Increase Revenue.
Brian Hamachek
Co-Founder, CEO of Nearby
Brian is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nearby.
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About Nearby, Social Foundry, LLC: Meeting new people is hard. We wanted to create something to help.
David Morken
Co Founder, Chairman & CEO of Bandwidth
Morken is the Cofounder, Chairman and CEO of Bandwidth.com, Inc. and is the Cofounder and Chairman of Republic Wireless. Morken was named the Ernst & Young 2013 Entrepreneur Of The Year in the Southeast Region and Gold Stevie Award winner for Maverick of the Year in the 2013 American Business Awards. In 2008 Bandwidth made the Inc. 500 list for the third consecutive year as the 4th fastest growing privately held company in the U.S. and the fastest growing telecommunications company from 2002 to 2007. In 2008 Morken was named one of the Triangle Business Journal”s 40 Under 40 top business leaders in RTP. In 1994, Morken co-founded the Internet”s first online tax filing service, efiling.com. He was called to active duty by the Marine Corps in 1995 and served four years as a Judge Advocate, criminal prosecutor and headquarters company commander. Morken is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School and a member of the Virginia Bar Association. He received his undergraduate degree from Oral Roberts University where he served as President of the Student Association. Morken suffers from an addiction to endurance events, finishing 1st in the 2013 Furnace Creek 508 ultra bike race (2-man relay), 1st in the 2010 Race Across America RAAM (4-man relay), 22nd in the 2008 Wasatch 100 mile Ultramarathon in under 27 hours, and was the 1st North Carolina finisher in the 2005 Ironman World Championships Kona Hawaii in 9 hours and 43 minutes. Morken was a two-time member of the Marine Corps Triathlon team in 1997-98. Morken resides in Chapel Hill with his bride and their six children. Morken and Bandwidth.com co-founder Henry Kaestner were named by American Venture Magazine as one of the Top 40 Under 40, and together were named by Frost and Sullivan as the 2006 CEO of the Year in the North American IP Communications Services industry. Morken and Kaestner have co-founded two non-profit organizations: DurhamCares, a non-profit charity which seeks to bring awareness of excellent charities that are transforming Durham.
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About Bandwidth: Bandwidth is a telecom company helping wholesale customers and enterprises leverage communications as a tool for innovation.
Michael Simon
Founder & CEO of LogMeIn
Michael Simon is the Member Board of Directors at CKE Restaurants, Inc.
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About CKE Restaurants, LogMeIn: LogMeIn provides SaaS-based remote connectivity, collaboration, and support solutions for businesses and consumers.
Daniela Perdomo
Co-founder & CEO of goTenna
Daniela Perdomo is founder and CEO of goTenna, which is advancing universal access to connectivity by decentralizing it. goTenna’s mesh networks are used by consumers as well as the U.N., Google, FEMA, Raytheon, the French Army, US Special Operations Forces & the City of New York. Daniela Perdomo is founder & CEO of goTenna, which is advancing universal access to connectivity by decentralizing it. goTenna’s specialized hardware pairs with regular smartphones to create long-range, mobile mesh networks independent of traditional communications networks. goTenna’s technology is used by consumers as well as the United Nations, Google, FEMA, Raytheon, the French Army, US Special Operations Forces, and the City of New York.
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About goTenna: GoTenna is advancing universal access to connectivity by building intelligent and scalable mobile mesh networks.
Maci Peterson Philitas
Founder & CEO of On Second Thought
Maci is the co-founder and CEO of On Second Thought, a messaging app whose patented technology lets users take back text messages before they get to the other person’s phone. She was recognized on Inc Magazine’s “30 Under 30 List” of 2016, and Washington Business Journal’s “40 Under 40 List” of 2015. In addition, Maci has been identified as “Tech’s Newest Innovator” by Essence Magazine, a rising leader in technology by Revolt TV, one of the “29 People You Should Know” by BET, and one of the “25 Black People in Tech You Should Know” by The Huffington Post. Maci began On Second Thought after winning 1st Place in the #StartupOasis pitch competition at South by Southwest in 2014. Maci is a member of the Internet Marketing Association’s Women Leaders Group. She was a member of the Founder’s Council at the 1776 Incubator in Washington, D.C., and an alumna of the MindShare Class of 2015. She has been invited to speak at a variety of leadership and business conferences including South by Southwest, The White House Initiative on HBCUs’ National HBCU Week Conference, Inc Magazine’s GrowCo, IdeaFest and Cox Communications’ Tech Summit.
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About On Second Thought: On Second Thought is a messaging app that enables its users to undo and edit messages before they get to the recipient’s phone.
Alex Beckman
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of GameOn Technology
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About Elastic Holdings, GameOn Technology: Our technology powers intelligent chat applications across multiple platforms for some of the world’s largest brands.
Joel Simkhai
Founder and CEO of Blendr
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About Blendr: Blendr is a geo-social networking application and social discovery platform for Android, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Facebook.
Serge Faguet
Co-founder and CEO of Mirror Emoji Keyboard
Serge Faguet is the co-founder and CEO of Mirror AI, the company using artificial intelligence and breakthrough algorithms to create the world’s most personalized emoji. Born in Russia, Serge was founder and CEO of TokBox, a leading PaaS communication infrastructure company funded by Sequoia Capital and acquired by Telefonica. After TokBox, Serge founded and served as CEO of Ostrovok/ZenHotels Group, the largest online travel company in Russia that is profitable with more than $500 million in turnover and 450 employees. Serge received his BA from Cornell, pursued an MBA at Stanford, and worked at Google. He is also a popular thought leader in the biohacking and personalized medicine community, and his articles on the subject reach millions of people.
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About Emerging Travel Group, Mirror Emoji Keyboard: Mirror uses a single selfie to instantly create hundreds of emoji that look like you and your friends.
Laduram Vishnoi
CEO & Founder of Acquire
Laduram Vishnoi is the CEO and founder of Acquire.
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About Acquire, Tagove: Acquire is a unified customer engagement platform that brings all communication, interactions, channels, and tools under one roof.
Crystal Rose
Founder and CEO of Make Sense Labs
Crystal Rose is the CEO and Founder of Sensay Inc, DBA Make Sense Labs. Full biography can be found at http://crystalrose.me
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About DeFiance Media, Make Sense Labs: Make Sense Labs Secure Messaging with Blockchain Technology
Lief Larson
Co-founder & CEO of Engage
Lief Larson is the Founder and CEO of Engage, Inc., the creator of the Engage platform that serves clients ranging from The PGA Tour to Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, and designed the Salesfolks.com marketplace launch in 2019. Larson was also the co-founder of Jenny Life, Inc. a venture-backed insurtech start-up that built the world’s first native mobile apps (Apple AppStore & Google Play) for the end-to-end purchase of life insurance without without the need for a medical exam. Larson is a software and human factor engineer with over 20 years’ experience in human-machine dynamics, including eight years in self-service kiosk systems and fifteen in web-based applications, platforms, and SaaS. He has been working in web-based marketing and social media sciences since 2004. He was previously named #8 on Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 10 American Entrepreneurs Under 30 list. Lief founded and grew KIOSK.com into one of the world’s largest providers of interactive self-service terminal technology solutions, and subsequently navigated the business to a successful sale. During his tenure in that industry he also built the industry publication and premier industry event. In 2004 Lief was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Kiosk & Self-Service industry association and was inducted into their Hall of Fame. Lief is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship and has been a mentor to over 200 entrepreneurs during the last two decades, including through programs at the Carlson School of Management, TiE Global, Project Skyway, and the Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship. Larson attended the University of Wisconsin (MC) and the University of Minnesota (TC).
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About Engage, Green Bay Packers, Jenny Life, Salesfolks: Engage provides a real-time sales management platform for communication and live chat.
Matt Schlicht
CEO and Founder of Octane AI
Matt Schlicht is the founder and editor of Chatbots Magazine, the #1 place to learn about chatbots. He is a YC Alum, a Forbes 30 Under 30 winner, and was also previously a product manager at Ustream as well as an advisor to several other startups. Several months ago, Matt decided to launch a community dedicated to messaging and bots. Chatbots Magazine was born and now reaches over 200,000+ people per month. Matt joins us to share his story, how he got into startups and tech, how he created the opportunity to join the team at uStream, how he approaches building products, why he’s so passionate about bots and messaging, what’s next for Chatbots Magazine.
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About Chatbots Magazine, DominateFund, Hamster Pad, Octane AI, ZapChain: Octane AI provides an all-in-one platform for engaging quizzes, data collection, and personalized Facebook Messenger and SMS automation.
Mahi de Silva
Co-founder & CEO of Amplify.ai
Mahi is the Co-founder & CEO at Amplify.ai. Previously, Mahi was responsible for commercial activities for Opera’s consumer mobile products and services. Before joining Opera, Mahi was co-founder and CEO of AdMarvel, Inc., the global leader in mobile advertising platforms, acquired by Opera in 2010. Prior to AdMarvel, Mahi co-founded Frengo Corporation, a mobile social media platform. Mahi also spent 10 years at VeriSign, where he was part of the startup management team. From 2002 to 2006, he served as senior vice president and general manager of Wireless and Digital Content Services at VeriSign, where he built the world’s leading mobile messaging and mobile entertainment business with revenues exceeding $600M per year. Prior to VeriSign, he served in various technology leadership roles at Taligent, Apple and NCR Corporation.
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About Amplify.ai, Opera Mediaworks: Amplify.ai is the developer of the first enterprise-class Conversational AI platform
Ryan Leslie
Founder/CEO of SuperPhone
Ryan Leslie, Co-founder & CEO, SuperPhone // direct cell: +1-646-887-6987 Grammy nominated recording artist, multi-platinum producer, and avid technologist. Ryan is the architect and ultimate case study for SuperPhone, Disruptive Multimedia (DMM)’s simple CRM for creators. In addition to logging studio time with Madonna, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Beyoncé, he launched the first internet pop star Cassie, who sold over 650K albums fueled by an aggressive pre-Twitter social media campaign on MySpace. Bravely opting to remove his latest album from iTunes, he used an inbound SMS campaign powered by SuperPhone to earn over $560K in D2C revenue from just 15K fans, a 4x multiple of royalties received on his major label debut which sold 180K copies. He holds a BA in Government from Harvard.
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About SuperPhone: SuperPhone is an intelligent mobile messaging platform that helps enterprise retail brands acquire, and engage with mobile customers.
George Deglin
Co-founder and CEO of OneSignal
George Deglin is the Co-founder and CEO at OneSignal.
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About OneSignal: OneSignal is a customer messaging and engagement platform that allows businesses to create meaningful customer connections.
Andrei Negrau
Founder & CEO of Cartloop
Andrei Negrau currently works as the founder and ceo of Cartloop.
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About Cartloop: Cartloop is a conversational SMS marketing and text marketing platform for e-commerce.
Bryan Hertz
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Voxox
Bryan Hertz co-founded Voxox Inc., in 2006 and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Bryan Hertz is Cofounder of Oridean, Inc.
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About Filmio, Voxox: VoxOx mixes VOIP with social networking and instant messaging to create a powerful suite of communications tools.
Lauren Kunze
Co-Founder & CEO of Pandorabots
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About Pandorabots: Pandorabots is a platform for building and deploying artificially intelligent chatbots.
Lukens Orthwein
Co-founder, CEO of Lynk Messenger
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About Lynk Messenger, Sochat: Lynk Messenger is a hyper-local messaging application that lets its users to chat with friends nearby for free.
Michael Sharkey
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Autopilot
Michael Sharkey co-founded Autopilot and is the CEO. Prior to founding Autopilot, Michael joined his brother Chris to grow start-up Stayz into a top Australian rental booking site (acquired by FairFax Digital in 2006 and again by HomeAway for $225M in 2013). He also co-founded Sharkey Media with his brother Chris, where he helped grow Australian startups, marketing programs, and websites.
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About Autopilot: Switch ON better marketing for your business. The Best Marketing and Customer Data Platform for Ecommerce
Guillaume De Zwirek
CEO & Founder of Well Health
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About Well Health: WELL Health® is the #1 patient communication platform for enterprise healthcare systems (2021 and 2022 Best in KLAS for Patient Outreach).
Justin Mitchell
Founder & CEO of Yac
Justin Mitchell is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Yac.
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About Getsyrup.com, SoFriendly, Yac: Yac is an asynchronous voice messaging platform for remote teams.
Bankim Brahmbhatt
President & CEO of Bankai Group
Bankim Brahmbhatt is President and CEO at Bankai Group.
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About Bankai Group, Panamax Inc.: Bankai Group is a telecommunications company specializing in billing, routing, and VoIP Solutions.
Dan Manian
Cofounder & CEO of Donut
Dan is the Co-Founder and CEO at Donut.
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About Alchemist Accelerator, Donut, doubleOone, Mobile Steam Unit, National Science Foundation: Donut helps people get to know their team and company better.
Brad Title
President, CEO and Founder of Gubagoo
Brad Title is the president, CEO, and founder of Gubagoo. Prior to that, Brad served as the vice president of sales at DME Automotive. He is a former national program manager at Cobalt and president and CEO of Cowboy Corp.
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About Gubagoo: Gubagoo is a leading provider of dealer live chat, text, video and Messenger solutions for the automotive industry.
Joon Beh
CEO | Co-Founder of Hallo
I’m an ambitious entrepreneur who believes in hard work, integrity, and big dreams. Innovation is my mindset, and I achieve whatever I set my mind to.
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About Hallo: Hallo is a real-time language learning platform for speaking.
Chetan Manikantan
Co-Founder & CEO of Tengu
Chet is a polymath, artist, designer, software engineer, inventor and a serial entrepreneur. He is currently the founder @gurug and @tenguID, President of Boston Blockchain Association, Director at MIT Bitcoin Club, Entrepreneur In Residence at UMass Boston, and ex Microsoft.
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About CornerTable, DeFacto Venture Partners, Guru-G Learning Labs, mySpark Technologies, Tengu: Tengu is transforming the financial services industry using blockchain technologies.
Tuan Ma
Founder & CEO of PlayersOnly
A entrepreneur, computer scientist and Founder of PlayersOnly. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from DePaul University, and a M.B.A. from Durham University (UK).
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About PlayersOnly: PlayersOnly is a sports social network focused on athletes.
Serge Kassardjian
CEO and Co-Founder of StayTuned
Serge Kassardjian is the co-founder and CEO of StayTuned Digital, a conversational messaging company. He was the Global Head of Media Apps for Google Play and Android. He led global business development efforts with Media companies including Entertainment, Video, Sports, News, Virtual Reality and Cable verticals. He was on the launch team for Daydream Virtual Reality, Android TV and various Nexus devices. He also worked on incubation businesses in Google’s GeoCommerce division, focused on Payments and Offers and was a member of the original Google Wallet launch team doing merchant partnerships. He was also the co-founder of NextRev Commerce (an AR and VR company helping brands and retailers build immersive commerce solutions), a Venture Capital Investor at Globespan Capital Partners and Corporate Development Director in Sony Music’s Global Digital Business. He started his career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. He received his MBA from Harvard and Bachelors and Masters in Engineering from Stanford where he was the President of his class. Tedx Talk: http://bit.ly/sergekasstedx
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About StayTuned: StayTuned is building a suite of tools to help high growth e-commerce brands grow even faster.
Koushi Sunder
Founder & CEO of Stemless
Koushi is the CEO and founder of Stemless, an online ordering platform that makes it easy for customers to order from.
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About Stemless: Stemless is a SaaS platform that brings cutting edge retail technology to dispensaries
Troy Goode
Founder & CEO of Courier
Troy is the Founder and CEO of Courier, a service that dramatically increases user engagement by intelligently routing user notifications to the best channel for each user – e.g. email, SMS, mobile, Slack, WhatsApp. Prior to Courier, Troy led the U.S. engineering team for Eloqua – the Bessemer-backed leader in email-based marketing automation – which he helped take public in 2012 and subsequently sold to Oracle for $800MM.
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About Courier: Courier is a notification-creation program for app developers that offers push notifications, emails, chat, slack, and custom channels.
Darin Myman
CEO of DatChat
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About DatChat: DatChat, Inc. is a personal privacy platform, focused on Encrypted Communication, Internet Security and Digital Rights Management.
David McIntosh
Co-Founder and CEO of Tenor Inc
David McIntosh is the co-founder and CEO of Tenor, which has built the largest mobile GIF sharing audience in the world, with more than 150 million people making billions of searches per month. Along with top-downloaded mobile apps, Tenor powers GIF sharing for leading mobile services like Facebook Messenger, Kik and Google’s Gboard. David was previously Founder and CEO of Redux, a video-discovery company which grew to 100M Connected TVs and consoles and was backed by Peter Thiel, Alsop-Louie, and DFJ. More on Redux (now part of CrunchyRoll): http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/12/crunchyroll-redux/ Forbes named David McIntosh one of the top 30 Entrepreneurs under 30 in 2016 and BusinessWeek named David McIntosh one of the top 25 US Entrepreneurs under 25 in 2007.
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About Tenor Inc: Tenor’s GIF search engine helps you find the perfect GIFs to express your thoughts and feelings in mobile messaging conversations.
Bill Moore
Founder/CEO of Zello
Bill is CEO of Zello, founder and director of TuneIn, and an early stage angel investor. Zello is social radio with 55 million anonymous users enjoying live public conversations from around the globe. NPR, PBS, BBC, CNN and Fox Business have covered Zello’s role as the most popular app for activists in Turkey, Egypt, Venezuela and Ukraine. While CEO of TuneIn thru 2011 Bill’s team created a platform to organize the worlds radio, created a top 50 overall app across 100 countries and won embedded deals powering BMW, Sonos and product lines across auto, mobile and connected device. Bill closed the funding with Sequoia Capital, moved the team to Palo Alto and returned to Texas.
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About Zello: Frontline workers save the world everyday. We build technology for them.
Balaji Krishnan
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of DabKick
Balaji Krishnan is working as Founder & CEO at DabKick Inc. Balaji Krishnan is Founder of Snapstick Inc. Balaji developed Snapstick’s technology in order to solve the problems he personally experienced with current Internet TV offerings. He has been creating and developing the concepts and architecture behind Snapstick for the past two years. Balaji previously worked in the core technology groups at Sun, HP and Oracle for more than 10 years. At Oracle he worked on database server technologies, with a special focus on the database transaction engine. Before Oracle, he spent three years at Hewlett-Packard where he worked on the HP UX development team, with a focus on file systems, volume management and virtual memory. He also worked in the Virtual Partitions team at HP. Before HP, Balaji spent three years at Sun Microsystems with the Solaris development team. Balaji received a Computer Science engineering degree, with honors, in India.
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About DabKick: DabKick is a real-time social entertainment platform that combines live video experiences with patented media sharing technologies.
Erik Wittreich
CEO of Ridgeline International
Erik Wittreich is an experienced Leader/Army Green Beret with a track record of developing complex strategies, executing long-term innovative plans, analyzing international trends, and managing high-profile client relationships. Wittreich maintains a reputation for building and growing cross-cultural teams to thrive during high-pressure situations in both military and corporate settings. Pat Tillman Scholar and Sloan Fellow at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Key specialties include: ● Managing Operations ● Strategic Planning ● Lifecycle Planning ● Qualitative/Quantitative Analysis ● Global Alliances ● Contingency Planning
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About Ridgeline International: Technology, Digital Signature Management
Oladayo Olagunju
Founder & CEO of Nyoombl
Oladayo Olagunju is the Founder and CEO at nyoombl, Inc.
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About Nyoombl: Nyoombl is an online conversational tool that matches people with similar interests so that they can strike conversation.
Raj Koneru
Founder & CEO of Kore.ai
Raj Koneru is the Founder/CEO of [Kore](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kore#/entity), . Prior to this, he was the Founder/CEO of Kony. Previously, he was the co-founder/CEO of Intelligroup, Seranova & iTouchPoint. Koneru has studied at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. He lives in Orlando, Florida, United States.
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About Kore.ai: Kore.ai, an AI-based enterprise focused on conversational and digital platforms and products.
Alex Turnbull
Founder & CEO of Groove
Alex is a serial entrepreneur whose past ventures have all been in the b2b SaaS space. Currently he’s the CEO and Founder of Groove, taking on the customer service market. Previously he was a co-founder and Product Manager at Bantam Live (Acquired by Constant Contact Feb. 11′) When Alex isn’t working, you can find him chasing waves up and down the East Coast.
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About Groove: Groove makes it easy for teams to manage customer service. More than 6,000 businesses deliver better customer support using Groove.
John S. Kim
Co-Founder & CEO of Sendbird
John founded two startups. SendBird is the chat API for mobile apps and websites, a Y Combinator and Techstars company. His first startup, Paprika Lab – a social gaming company, was acquired by GREE. His focus is on problem solving, building teams, and business development. A car enthusiast and Korea’s all-time no.1 and world’s no.3 Unreal Tournament player in 2000.
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About Sendbird: Sendbird developed a messaging-as-a-service API that provides chat, voice, and video messaging for mobile apps and websites.
Alex Kehr
CEO of Superlocal
CEO at Superlocal.
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About Science, Superlocal: Superlocal is a social network that makes every day life feel like a fun game.
Shawn Boyer
Founder & CEO of GoHappy
Shawn Boyer, former Snagajob Founder and Chairman of the Board, founded DieHappy in 2015, a personal social media app for busy people who want to easily make social plans with their closest friends and family and to privately group share photos with ONLY those people – without the noise of traditional social media. It’s the place for all your fun stuff in life. It has been privately funded to date with over 2,000 users during its beta period, and launched publicly at the beginning of 2017. DieHappy is currently available on the iOS platform with Android slated for spring of 2017. Shawn was named the 2008 National Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration and was publicly recognized by President George W. Bush for successfully creating a Web site to help hourly workers. Snagajob was named to both Fortune Magazine’s Great Place to Work Best Small & Medium Workplaces list for 8 straight years (and a #1 finish in 2011) and was on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 for 5 years during Shawn’s tenure as CEO. Boyer was CEO of Snagajob from 2000 to 2013 before moving into the Chairman role through the fall of 2015 and prior to founding Snagajob in 1999, Boyer was a transactional attorney with the law firm of Brown & Wood LLP (now Sidley Austin, LLP). He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and the Washington & Lee School of Law, and he received his LL.M. in taxation from Georgetown University Law Center.
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About GoHappy, Snag: Easily find time to do things w/ friends – suggest dates, vote, pick a winner, & sync to calendar. Chat & add photos before, during & after.
Sebastian Seilund
Founder and CEO of Userflow
Sebastian Seilund is the founder of Userflow – a powerful, modern solution to no-code user onboarding software. Sebastian previously worked as a software engineer at Google and founded the Danish accounting software Billy.
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About Userflow: Userflow is a platform for building onboarding guides, product tours and more. No coding needed.
Frank Fawzi
Chief Executive Officer of IntelePeer
Frank Fawzi is the President & CEO & Chairman of the Board at IntelePeer Inc. In 2007, Frank joined IntelePeer as CEO. Frank is the guiding force in supporting the company’s growth efforts in its drive to be the leading innovator of communications services and applications for top-tier carriers, voice service providers, enterprise software and web companies. Between 1991 and 2001, Frank founded, built, and subsequently sold CommTech Corporation, a leader in the communications software sector, to ADC, a leading provider of broadband solutions for the telecommunication industry for $178M. He also served on the Communications Board of the New Jersey Technology Council, which named CommTech #1 mid-stage company of the year in 1997. Prior to founding CommTech, Frank worked with AT&T Bell Laboratories and other divisions of AT&T. While at AT&T, he was the Lead Data Communications Architect on a team responsible for AT&T being awarded a $1.4 billion contract from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Frank received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Computer Science and a Masters of Science in Management Information Systems from Stevens Institute of Technology, and has participated in the Wharton Executive Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
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About IntelePeer: IntelePeer Powers the NEW Customer Experience
Robert Levin
CEO of Transclick
Robert E. Levin, emerging markets, global macro strategist, mobile technology leader, author, inventor Robert Levin is the CEO of Transclick, Inc., a Technology Pioneer of the World Economic Forum with over 10 million app client downloads in 192 countries. Transclick is launching the largest digital health & medical apps marketplace for the developing world. Transclick has recently won 3 awards: The OnMobile 100, the AlwaysOn Global 250 and the Gold Edison Award 2012. He is a Tech Laureate of the Tech Museum of Innovation. He is also a Managing Director of Emerging Star Capital, LLC which advises family offices, private banks and institutional investors. He is an inventor, best-selling author, public speaker and holds one issued US patent. He is also a strategist in global macro, emerging markets and technology investments. He was trained at Salomon Brothers and was a top strategist for 2 hedge funds, Tudor and Moore Global.Robert Levin is a foreign policy analyst and recognized expert in technology and global emerging markets. He is a member of the World Economic Forum and was an active corporate member of the Council on Foreign Relations.He is the author of the first biography of President Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton: The Inside Story, and Democratic Blueprints: National Leaders Chart America’s Future. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Finance at the Columbia Business School teaching global investment strategy and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University. Contact: robert@transclick.com or 1-212-751-5150 Ext. 5 and mobile Ext. 1
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About Edison Awards, Emerging Star Capital, TED, The Global Future Education Foundation, The World Economic Forum, Transclick: Transclick provides real-time translation capabilities for cellphones, and messaging and collaboration systems.
John Lauer
CEO of Zipwhip
John is an Internet and mobile veteran with 20 years of corporate management experience. At 21 years old, his first entrepreneur endeavor was Rootlevel, a web application development company that built GM.com and Ford.com.He then founded Simplewire, one of the mobile industry’s first text messaging aggregators which was acquired by Qpass in 2006 and rebranded as OpenMarket. John stayed on board with OpenMarket for a year and a half as VP of Sales driving revenue from $5M annually to $500M. John is also known for throwing the most elaborate Halloween party in the state of Washington. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlauer12
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About Chilipeppr, Zipwhip: Zipwhip features software that helps people businesses have more effective conversations by text-enabling existing phone numbers.
Jordan Glazier
Founder, CEO of Wildfire Systems
Jordan Glazier is the Founder and CEO at Wildfire Systems, Inc.
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About Wildfire Systems: White-label cashback rewards platform with patented technologies to power custom loyalty solutions and reward customers’ online shopping.
Jesse Clemmens
Co-Founder & CEO of HiBeam
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About HiBeam: HiBeam provides creators with productive message management through prioritizing DMs and comments into a single workspace.
Tom Hadfield
CEO of Mio
Tom Hadfield of CEO at Mio.
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About Mio, Prompt: Chat better, together. Mio powers seamless intercompany communication across Slack, Microsoft Teams, & Webex Teams.
Jack Philbin
Co-Founder, President & CEO of Vibes
As one of the premier thought-leaders in mobile marketing and wireless, Jack spearheads Vibes’ strategic direction and drives the company’s position as the leading provider of mobile relationship management technology solutions for leading brands. An entrepreneur and builder, Jack has specific expertise in business development, strategic client management and consumer marketing. Jack currently serves as Chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association North America Board of Directors and on the CTIA Wireless Internet Caucus. Jack was honored with the MMA’s “Outstanding Individual Achievement” award in 2005. Under Jack’s leadership, Vibes was ranked #92 on the 2007 Inc. 500 list of fastest growing US companies and has received numerous awards for their innovation.
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About FireStarter Fund, Mobile Marketing Association, Vibes: Vibes is a mobile marketing software platform.
Beatrice Fischel-Bock
CEO & Co-founder of Hutch Interiors
Beatrice Fischel-Bock is the CEO and Co-Founder of Hutch, the home decor tool that mixes 3D technology with online shopping to let you virtually decorate your space. Beatrice launched Hutch (formerly known as ZOOM Interiors and Homee) in 2012 during her final year at George Washington University after coming to the realization that interior design was an untapped resource in the technology sector. She soon began virtually designing her friend’s apartments – earning $1 million in revenue, while still in school. Shortly following graduation, she appeared on Shark Tank to pitch the concept and piqued the interest of Tinder Founder Sean Rad, who helped raise $2.2 million in pre-seed funding. Immediately following that round, she raised an additional $5 million in funding in a seed round led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Her 2016 TEDx talk focused on how to fail fast, fix fast and learn fast, a mantra that has carried her through the trenches of the startup world. In July of 2017, she closed a Series A funding round for $10 million from real estate platform Zillow. Beatrice was named 2018’s Forbes 30 Under 30 for Retail & E-Commerce.
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About Hutch Interiors: Hutch Interiors is a mobile app that transforms spaces from before to after, faster than ever.
Zac Choi
Co-Founder & CEO of String
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About String: String is a software company that offers a cloud-based direct phone line and messaging solution for business texting and calling.
Nick Halavins
Founder & CEO of AntiLand™
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About AntiLand™: AntiLand is a community of likeminded people. Saves people from depressions, boredom, and loneliness by anonymous talk therapy.
Angel Grablev
CEO & Director of Sales of Freedcamp
Angel is a web developer that started his first web start-up at age 17. Angel has worked for famous musicians including Jack Johnson and The Wailers. His expertise include design, coding, and programming. He is well versed in coding professional html and css pages, and designing high end templates using photoshop. Angel’s first start-up was exfrag, a social network for gamers. Funding reached was $5000 from anonymous investors. The website was fully developed and functional within 6 months, it raised a good traffic flow and it gained some valuable members. Unfortunately the online gaming platform Steam came out with their own social network that had less features, but they had already possessed the database of millions of gamers. His first real job in the web development industry was for a company named Oniracom who develop high end websites for musicians. Oniracom took Angel under their wing and taught him skills and techniques that help him deal with various web development issues every day and create cutting edge websites. Currently Angel is the CEO of Freedcamp, the revolutionary Project Management and Collaboration platform. He is in charge of managing a team of 5 people while still being responsible for all Front-End interface design and implementation of the Application.
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About Freedcamp, Freedcamp, UCSB Professional and Continuing Education: We are building the first truly intelligent project management system.
Steffen Hoellinger
Co-Founder & CEO of Airy
Co-Founder & CEO at Airy
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About Airy: Open Source Conversational Data Platform
Arash Hassibi
CEO & Co-Founder of joinedapp
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About joinedapp: Leader in Conversational Commerce: Sell on Text, Voice and Touch Channels
Ari Rabban
Co-Founder & CEO of Phone.com
CEO at Phone.com, Inc.
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About Phone.com: Phone.com is the modern, work-from-anywhere solution for today’s agile, mobile, and always-on entrepreneurs and growing businesses.
Chuck Elias
Co-Founder & CEO of 42Chat
As senior vice president, strategy & corporate development, Chuck Elias works with FBHS operating unit leadership on strategies across a wide range of strategic initiatives. He also leads the company’s corporate development activities, including mergers & acquisitions. Prior to joining FBHS, Chuck served in senior leadership roles at Supervalu, a $35 billion grocery retailer/wholesaler. Most recently, he was Supervalu’s senior vice president of retail operations. Prior to joining Supervalu, Elias was a managing director for portfolio operations at Ridgeview Capital, a private equity firm. He also held several leadership positions at The Home Depot. Elias holds a Bachelor’s degree in Management, with honors, from the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in Boston.
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About 42Chat: 42Chat make AI Chatbots that provide instant answers and personalized connection over regular text (and other channels)
Scott Grimes
CEO & Co-Founder of Stackin’
Scott is an industry leader and entrepreneur responsible for the overall strategic direction and revenue at Woven. Since the inception of Woven in 2010, Scott has led the growth of the media business from a small collection of niche sites to a dominate player in the young men’s lifestyle and urban categories. Scott’s success at Woven directly translates from his years of leading strategy and sales for major media companies including News Corp., Nielsen Media and Sky Television. During his career he has successfully managed operations and revenue across multiple advertising platforms including digital, television and print. Scott resides in Los Angeles and received his B.S. from the University of Texas at Austin.
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About Stackin’, Uproxx Media Group: Stackin’ empowers people to improve their financial lives via text message.
Mike Greene
CEO and Co-founder of Hi Marley
Mike Greene is a Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Hi Marley.
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About Hi Marley: Hi Marley is a developer of an artificially intelligent-based SMS texting platform designed to bridge the conversation.
Tsavo Knott
Co-Founder & CEO of Mesh
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About Mesh: Mesh is a developer of messaging tool designed specifically for universities to help connect to students, faculty , and staff.
Djamel Agaoua
CEO of Viber
Djamel Agaoua is the CEO at the helm of Rakuten Viber, one of the world’s largest mobile applications with 800+ million users worldwide with a range of features like one-on-one chats, video calls, group messaging, social shopping, and updates and discussions with their favorite brands and celebrities. A veteran executive with a track record of growing innovative global techs, Djamel is a private investor and sought after board member, advisor and speaker.
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About Viber: Viber allows people to connect through individual messaging, video calls, group chats or following brands and celebrities on Public Chats.
Matthew Payne
CEO of Go Text Blast
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About Go Text Blast: B2C text messaging SaaS
Brian Gannon
Founder & CEO of Loop
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About Loop: Private family network
Filip Twarowski
CEO of Point
Filip Twarowski is CEO and Co-Founder at EasyEmail.ai. Fil is an MIT mathematician and aerospace engineer. He’s gathered experience in big data, statistical modeling and natural language processing while working for NASA and Quantlab Financial. His first startup experience was in 2015, when he worked for a medical software startup to help predict diseases without doctor supervision. He led teams of 70 people and organized one of the largest career fairs in the US. Filip also competed in judo on the National Team for Poland and played the harmonica on a couple of blues bands.
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About Point: Point helps the user to easily save snippets of text, templates, and other content, and re-use them effortlessly on any website.
Ben Congleton
Founder & CEO of Olark
Ben Congleton is a Founder & CEO at Olark.
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About Olark: Olark is a live chat platform that enables businesses to talk to customers browsing their website.
Brett Caine
CEO of Airship
As president and CEO of Urban Airship, Brett Caine is responsible for leading the organization’s growth and global expansion strategies. Brett Caine brings 22 years of executive experience in the technology industry with a strong background in scaling Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses from startups in emerging markets to the global “go-to” choice in mature industries. As former president of Citrix Online, Brett grew revenue from $40M to $600M over his 10 years with the company to become one of the largest SaaS providers in the world. Prior to joining Citrix Online, Caine held executive positions with several leading software companies including Openwave Systems, Software.com and Clarify, Inc. Brett is a board member of Kareo and a board advisor to mobile, SaaS and cloud startups, advising CEOs on market strategy, product positioning and fundraising. He holds a B.S. in Marketing from New York University.
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About Airship: Airship creates deeper connections with customers by delivering incredibly relevant, orchestrated messages on any channel.
Alexey Aylarov
Co-Founder & CEO of Zingaya
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About Voximplant, Zingaya: Zingaya provides online voice calling facilities to website operators through any computer device, directly from a webpage.
Chad Halvorson
Co-Founder & CEO of When I Work
Chad Halvorson is the CEO of thisCLICKS , makers of When I Work, a cloud-based mobile employee scheduling software. When I Work simplifies staff scheduling and communication for restaurants, retailers, healthcare providers and countless SMBs in more than 50 countries around the world. Before thisCLICKS, Chad led the development team at Meditech Communications, a digital marketing agency that provides app development, animation and video production services to the medical device industry. For over a decade, he led the development and architecture of interactive tools, apps and web software for Fortune 500 giants like Boston Scientific, UnitedHealthcare and St. Jude Medical — plus countless small and mid-sized companies.
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About When I Work: When I Work is an employee scheduling and time tracking platform designed for shift-based teams.
Jordan Verroi
Founder & CEO of CapGenius
Jordan Verroi is the founder of CapGenius, LLC. He is also an active investor in Pangea.app, Drum.io and silent investor in a CPG brand in the Food & Beverage industry.
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About CapGenius: CapGenius creates creative content and publishes it through a mobile keyboard.
CEO & Founder of Say2eat
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About Say2eat: Say2eat makes ordering food as easy as texting a friend or asking Alexa to play a song.
Josh Lober
President/CEO of ESChat
Prior to founding SLA in 1991, Mr. Lober held positions at 3dbm, Inc. and Gould Electronics where he worked on military RADAR systems. He also worked at Biocom, Inc., where he worked on the company’s orange “paramedic radio” made famous in the TV show Emergency. During the pre-rfp and pre-award phases, FirstNet had declared a data first, Mission Critical voice later model. In the post-award era, FirstNet’s mission has changed to onboarding subscribers. Therefore, the initial rollout will include indiscriminate Priority and Preemption that will benefit all applications, including Over the Top PTT. First Responders will have the option to choose FirstNet or third-party PTT vendors. Are we at the forefront of next-generation LMR/LTE interoperability, or are we creating the next-generation of interoperability problems? Mr. Lober is President/CEO of SLA Corporation, the parent company of ESChat. Since its foundation in 1991, SLA has developed numerous wireless solutions for Government, Commercial and Military applications. SLA’s Commercial wireless history includes 1G thru 4G network infrastructure, specifically AMPS, ETACS, IS-136, CDMA 1xEVDO (Rev. 0 and Rel. A) and LTE. SLA developed its first Push to Talk over Cellular (PTToC) solution in 2003 using the “iTalk” and “PoC” standards. SLA’s team opted to create a more efficient PTToC protocol which became Enterprise Secure Chat (ESChat), today’s leading secure LTE PTToC solution for military, public safety and large business use. Prior to founding SLA in 1991, Mr. Lober held positions at 3dbm, Inc. and Gould Electronics where he worked on military RADAR systems. He also worked at Biocom, Inc., where he worked on the company’s orange “paramedic radio” made famous in the TV show Emergency. Mr. Lober holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Science from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
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About ESChat: Enterprise Secure is Chat Independent Push to Talk Platform. Used by Federal, State & Local Law Enforcement.
Ian Tien
CEO & Co-founder of Mattermost
Ian Tien is CEO and co-founder of Mattermost, and previously founded SpinPunch, Inc.’s indie video game business while in graduate school, growing the business to three title franchises. He was formerly VP Product at a movie streaming startup backed by Sequoia Capital, Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures. Before that, he ran product management for Microsoft’s SkyDrive and Windows Live Photos services, and was interim lead of Hotmail. Prior, he led engineering teams for Microsoft Office in its enterprise software business across SharePoint and Business Intelligence product lines. He holds several patents and is alumus of the University of Waterloo, where he worked at Trilogy Software during school, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he served as teaching assistant for Andy Grove and Myron Scholes. Ian grew up in suburban Toronto and freelanced as an illustrator before college.
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About Mattermost: Mattermost is an open source platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle.
Frank Rice
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Searchable.com
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Deep Rock Ventures, Inc. (DRV), Frank is the visionary behind the proprietary technology driving the mobile marketing platforms, applications and Patents to be delivered by DRV. Frank brings over 30 years of business entrepreneurial experience and leadership skills as well as a visionary in both internet and web based technologies. Frank is a founding pioneer in the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) industry, leading his team from 1997 through 2000 to build and launch one of the first nationwide private VoIP infrastructures in the United States. A highly innovative and disruptive technology that became instrumental in eviscerating long distance charges, which saved consumers tremendous sums of money. This technological breakthrough sparked a flurry of mergers and acquisitions including the acquisition one of Frank’s business relationships and major equipment providers for 24 Billion dollars. Beginning in the year 2000 and for several years following, Frank spent much of his time as an angel investor, entrepreneur, speaker and mentor in various other business ventures. In early 2007 until mid 2008, Frank assisted another organization in Internet Technology and the sales of Web Based Education for one of the world’s largest online ecommerce training companies. He was responsible for a 300% growth in his region within the first year. Recognizing an insatiable demand in the exploding area of mobile commerce and other web-based properties, Frank embraced his entrepreneurial spirit once again moving forward in 2011 with the design, development and implementation of a new business model. Searchable.com, an easy and affordable solution for the small and medium business (SMB’s) owner community to advertise and market to the growing number of mobile consumers. Over the last several years, Frank’s vision is to deliver a highly affordable, socially interactive, mobile marketing platform to the world of SMB’s empowering them with the ability to promote and compete for mobile consumers in this growing marketplace seamlessly. Searchable.com delivers a socially interactive mobile commerce platform directly connecting mobile consumers and local businesses together in real time seamlessly without the use of third party aggregators and others alike, thus creating economic sustainability on a global scale unlike any other platform currently available.
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About MobiDart, Searchable.com: Humanizing Mobile Shopping – A Mobile Advertising and Shopping Platform Supporting Local Businesses
Gregory Taylor
CEO, President of Orion Labs
Greg was appointed Orion’s Chief Executive Officer in January 2020 after serving as President and Chief Operating Officer from April 2019 and is a member of the company’s Board of Directors. He is responsible for the company’s vision, global strategy and day-to-day operations. In this role, he leads the critical emergence of the company as a foremost global leader in the enterprise Voice Activated Business Automation category within the Workstream Collaboration / Connected Workforce sector. His focus is on accelerating the company’s leading market position and global growth. Greg is a veteran executive and entrepreneur in the enterprise software industry. He recently served as President and Chief Operating Officer of global SaaS leaders HighQ (acquired by Thomson Reuters) Eka Solutions Inc., and notably served as the Executive Vice President of Triple Point Technology, the global leader for in-cloud commodities management software. At Triple Point, Greg drove the company’s record software industry-leading 5x revenue and earnings growth over seven consecutive high-growth years. He led the successful global expansion strategy, integrated eight acquisitions and grew the company to 16 global offices, 450 marquee corporate customers on six continents, over 900 employees as well as to seven consecutive INC 500 awards. In the summer of 2013, he and his two partners completed the successful sale of Triple Point to ION, in one of the largest enterprise software deals of the year. Prior to Triple Point, Greg served as Executive Vice President for Netkey Technology, Inc. (acquired by NEC), iMediation Inc. (acquired by OpenText) and Vice President at Datalogix International (IPO, acquired by Oracle). He started his career in sales and management at IBM after graduating with a BA from Connecticut College. Greg serves on the boards of Connor Industries Inc., Harris Freeman & Company Inc. and The Everest Leadership Academy (a not-for-profit entity in leadership mentoring for less-advantaged students with academic promise).
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About Orion Labs: Orion Labs is a voice-first enterprise communication platform connecting frontline workers and teams and with AI-driven automation.
Tamir Koch
Founder & CEO of TriPlay
Tamir Koch is the Founder & CEO at TriPlay.
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About eMusic, TriPlay: TriPlay is the next generation personal cloud company
Alex Quilici
CEO of YouMail
Alex joined YouMail as its CEO in February, 2007. Prior to that, he was the co-founder and CEO of Quack.com, a voice portal company founded in July 1999 that was sold to AOL in August 2000. After the AOL acquisition, he remained at AOL, and was a key member of the team that led AOL’s Voice Services division to launch a set of successful voice services, including AOLbyPhone, AOL Voicemail, and AOL Call Alert, that wound up with over 1m paying subscribers and $50m in annual revenue. He is a board member of NeoEdge Networks, a Strategic Advisory Board Member of Jefferson Partners, and a member of the Tech Coast Angels. Alex has a B.A in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, an MS and PhD in Computer Science from UCLA. He is the holder of several voice-service related patents, and has written a series of best-selling computer science textbooks.
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About YouMail: YouMail has developed a feature-rich, easy to use visual voicemail app, for your phone, tablet, or computer.
David Tal
CEO & Co-Founder of Verse.io
David Tal is the CEO & Co-Founder at Verse.io.
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About Verse.io: Verse turns new leads into sales ready opportunities through immediate AI-Driven and Human-Powered conversations at scale.
