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 Founder operating in the Transportation space. If you think a Founder 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.
Shervin Pishevar
Co-Founder of Virgin Hyperloop
Shervin Pishevar is the Co-Founder at Virgin Hyperloop.
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About Airbnb, Cue, Curology, Didi, Doctor On Demand, Dollar Shave Club, Eaze, Fair, ipsy, Lyft, Opendoor, PillPack, Poshmark, Postmates by Uber, quip, Rent the Runway, Robinhood, Slack, Snap, Sofreh Capital, Virgin Hyperloop, Warby Parker: Virgin Hyperloop is a developer of a transportation technology used to deliver fast, direct, and sustainable transportation at scale.
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Josh Giegel
CEO & Co-Founder of Virgin Hyperloop
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About Virgin Hyperloop: Virgin Hyperloop is a developer of a transportation technology used to deliver fast, direct, and sustainable transportation at scale.
Toby Sun
Co-Founder and CEO of Lime
Toby Sun is the CEO and Co-founder of Lime, the leading global micromobility company that has revolutionized the first and last-mile transportation challenge. Lime has raised $777 million and is backed by world-leading investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, GGV, IDG, DCM, Franklin Templeton, Section 32, AME Cloud Ventures, Stanford Start-X, Kevin Durant, etc. Prior to Lime (formerly LimeBike), Toby was an investment director at Fosun Kinzon Capital, a $400M US-China cross-border venture fund backed by Fosun Group, focusing on early and growth-stage investment in consumer internet and IoT space. Toby invested in Tapingo, Grubmarket, Usens, Ding’Ding Smart Lock, and was involved in the board duties. Prior to Fosun, Toby was a Product and Marketing Manager at PepsiCo and managed a large US-China cross-border team, where he launched Gatorade in China and managed 7UP ($300M annual sales). Toby also worked as a management consultant at Monitor Group and Deloitte Consulting’s San Francisco office. Toby holds an MBA from Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley, and is a frequent guest speaker.
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About Lime, Lime: Lime helps people move around their cities in an affordable and convenient way while eliminating their carbon footprint.
Arsen Tomsky
CEO & Founder of inDriver
Arsen Tomsky is the founder and CEO of inDriver. He leads the company’s global team of more than 1500 employees and over 100 million-user inDriver ecosystem in 34 countries around the world. Arsen founded inDriver in 2013 and developed the business into the world’s fastest growing ride-hailing services. Arsen grew up in Yakutsk, Russia, and received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Yakutsk State University. He is a passionate runner and finisher of the Chicago and Tokyo Marathons.
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About inDriver: inDriver is the world’s fastest-growing ride-hailing service.
Jiajun Zhu
Co-Founder and CEO of Nuro
Jiajun Zhu is a co-founder of Nuro. he used to be the principal software engineer of Google. He eraned his master’s degree ta University of Virginia and his bachelor’s degree at Fudan University.
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About Nuro: Nuro develops and operates a fleet of electric self-driving vehicles that are built to deliver assorted local goods.
Hannan Parvizian
Co-Founder & CEO of Volansi
Hannan Parvizian is Founder at Volans-i.
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About Volansi: Volansi is a developer of logistics solutions through autonomous drone deliveries that facilitate long range, time-critical shipments.
Wesley Zheng
Co-Founder of Volansi
Wesley Zheng is Founder at Volans-i.
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About Volansi: Volansi is a developer of logistics solutions through autonomous drone deliveries that facilitate long range, time-critical shipments.
James Wu
Co-Founder and CEO of DeepMap
James Wu is the Co-Founder and CEO of DeepMap Inc. He is a former Principal Architect at Baidu, Inc and Principal Engineer at Upthere. Mr. Wu graduated from Tianjin University with a bachelor of science in Computer Science and received a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
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About DeepMap: DeepMap is accelerating safe autonomy by providing the world’s best autonomous mapping and localization solutions.
Vignan Velivela
Co-Founder & CEO of AtoB
Vignan Velivela is the Co-Founder & CEO at AtoB.
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About AtoB: AtoB is a technology company building payments infrastructure for the transportation industry.
Harshita Arora
Co-Founder of AtoB
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About AtoB, Shuttle: AtoB is a technology company building payments infrastructure for the transportation industry.
Emily Kirsch
Founder, Managing Partner & CEO of Powerhouse Ventures
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About Powerhouse, Powerhouse Ventures: Powerhouse Ventures backs seed-stage startups building innovative software to rapidly decarbonize our global energy and mobility systems.
Aarjav Trivedi
CEO and Co-Founder of Ridecell
Aarjav is the founder and CEO of RideCell. Before RideCell, Aarjav worked in engineering at SpiDynamics (Acquired by HP) and as a research engineer at CipherTrust and Secure Computing (Acquired by McAfee) where he helped invent and ship security systems used by over 40% of the Fortune 500 as well as the Pentagon. Aarjav has a Masters degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and a Bachelors in in Computer Science from University of Mumbai.
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About Ridecell: Ridecell provides car-sharing, ride-sharing, short-term leases, and autonomous vehicle fleet services for car rental companies.
ArunKumar Elangovan
Co-Founder of Ridecell
ArunKumar Elangovan is the Co-Founder of Ridecell.
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About Ridecell: Ridecell provides car-sharing, ride-sharing, short-term leases, and autonomous vehicle fleet services for car rental companies.
Alex Alpert
Founder & CEO of Shyft
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About NFX, Shyft: Shyft transforms the moving and relocation industry by introducing technology, customer service, and lead management solutions.
Daniela Alpert
Co-Founder & VP of Corp Relocation of Shyft
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About Shyft: Shyft transforms the moving and relocation industry by introducing technology, customer service, and lead management solutions.
Ritu Narayan
Founder and CEO of Zum
Ritu Narayan is the founder and CEO of ZUM. She also founded TechX and served as the group product manager at eBay. Ritu holds a master’s degree in management from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Delhi Institute of Technology.
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About Zum: Zūm provides child transportation for school districts and busy families.
Vivek Garg
Co-Founder & COO of Zum
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About Zum: Zūm provides child transportation for school districts and busy families.
Sanjaya Wijeratne
Co-Founder & CTO of TrueNorth
Sanjaya Wijeratne is a Co-founder & CTO at TrueNorth.
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About TrueNorth: TrueNorth offers software that helps truckers manage insurance, fuel, and maintenance.
Joanna McFarland
Co-Founder & CEO of HopSkipDrive
Joanna has more than 15 years experience in product and general management. She has a MBA from Stanford University and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Joanna drives her two boys, Jackson (7) and Sam (4), to school, karate, T-ball and cub scouts.
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About HopSkipDrive, XFactor Ventures: HopSkipDrive is a vehicle for hire company focused on shuttling kids to school.
Matt Cox
Co-Founder & CEO of Beacon AI
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About Beacon AI: Beacon AI focuses on applying deep aviation and AI on public, commerical, and private fleets.
Avinash Nair
Co-Founder of Beacon AI
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About Beacon AI: Beacon AI focuses on applying deep aviation and AI on public, commerical, and private fleets.
Euwyn Poon
President & Co-Founder of Spin
Euwyn Poon is a Singapore-born entrepreneur, lawyer, and engineer. He founded Spin, the micro-mobility company based in San Francisco that was acquired by Ford in 2018, and is the founding partner of the venture capital firm Moso Capital. Euwyn graduated from Cornell University in 2004 at the age of 18 with a degree in Computer Science and Cornell Law School in 2007. After earning a J.D. from Cornell Law School, he practiced M&A and securities law at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett from 2007 to 2009, then was funded by Y Combinator.
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About Moso Capital, Spin: Spin is a stationless electric scooter company that provides dockless mobility systems.
Jordan Brown
Founder, CEO of Lugg
Jordan Brown is the Founder, CEO at Lugg
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About Lugg: Lugg provides anything moved with the push of a button. Download Lugg on the App store and instantly get connected to a truck and 2 movers.
Eric Kreutzer
Founder of Lugg
Eric Kreutzer is the Founder at Lugg
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About Lugg: Lugg provides anything moved with the push of a button. Download Lugg on the App store and instantly get connected to a truck and 2 movers.
Jianxiong Xiao
Founder and CEO of AutoX
Jianxiong Xiao (a.k.a., Professor X) is the Founder and CEO of AutoX Inc., a high-tech company working on self-driving vehicles. AutoX’s mission is to democratize autonomy and enable autonomous driving to improve everyone’s life. Dr. Xiao has over ten years of research and engineering experience in Computer Vision, Autonomous Driving, and Robotics. In particular, he is a pioneer in the fields of 3D Deep Learning, RGB-D Recognition and Mapping, Big Data, Large-scale Crowdsourcing, and Deep Learning for Robotics. Jianxiong received a BEng. and MPhil. in Computer Science from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2009. He received his Ph.D. from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2013. And he was an Assistant Professor at Princeton University and the founding director of the Princeton Computer Vision and Robotics Labs from 2013 to 2016. His work has received the Best Student Paper Award at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) in 2012 and the Google Research Best Papers Award for 2012, and has appeared in the popular press. He was awarded the Google U.S./Canada Fellowship in Computer Vision in 2012, the MIT CSW Best Research Award in 2011, NSF/Intel VEC Research Award in 2016, and two Google Faculty Awards in 2014 and in 2015 respectively. He co-lead the MIT+Princeton joint team to participate in the Amazon Picking Challenge in 2016, and won the 3rd and 4th place worldwide. He was named to be one of the 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review in 2017, and one of the 12 of the most promising entrepreneurs to keep an eye on in 2018 by Next Visionaries.
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About AutoX: AutoX is a self-driving car startup that offers AI drivers to enable universal access to transportation for the people.
Ivan Tsybaev
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Trucker Path
Ivan Tsybaev is CEO & Founder at Trucker Path and Co-Founder & CEO of JobEasy.
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About Careerist, Trucker Path: Trucker Path provides a software platform designed for the trucking industry.
Edward Kearney
Co-Founder and CEO of Boundary Layer Technologies
Edward Kearney is the co-founder and CEO of Boundary Layer Technologies. He is also an advisor at Snappr Inc. Edward is a former COO and co-founder at GownTown Pty Ltd.
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About Boundary Layer Technologies: Boundary Layer Technologies is a startup that builds high-speed container ships using hydrofoil technology.
Jeremy Osborne
Co-Founder and Engineer of Boundary Layer Technologies
Jeremy Osborne is the co-founder and engineer at Boundary Layer Technologies. He is also a managing director at EnergyAE. He has held positions at 5B, SOLEM Consulting, UNSW Australia, Solar San Antonio, and Dell.
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About Boundary Layer Technologies: Boundary Layer Technologies is a startup that builds high-speed container ships using hydrofoil technology.
JoeBen Bevirt
Founder & CEO of Joby Aviation
JoeBen Bevirt is an inveterate entrepreneur born with a passion for engineering that has driven the formation of four successful companies over the past 10 years. JoeBen founded Joby, Inc. in 2005 to develop, market, and sell useful, unique, and delightful consumer products. Profitable almost immediately, Joby continues to deliver new products and record profits.
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About Intel Capital, Joby Aviation: Joby Aviation is an aerospace transportation company developing electric aircrafts.
Xiaodi Hou
Founder & CTO of TuSimple
Dr. Xiaodi Hou co-founded TuSimple in 2015 and serves as the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Xiaodi Hou is an internationally renowned expert in artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision. Dr. Xiaodi Hou currently holds 13 patents in the field of autonomous vehicles. In the field of computer vision, Mr. Hou has developed leading theories in computational models for visual saliency. He earned a Ph.D. in Computation and Neural Systems from the California institute of Technology and holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Dr. Xiaodi Hou has presented at global events such as Web Summit and Nvidia’s GTC conference and has been featured in leading publications such as Wired and Forbes.
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About TuSimple: TuSimple is a self-driving truck company developing technology that allows them to drive from depot-to-depot without human intervention.
Chris Urmson
Co-Founder and CEO of Aurora
Chris Urmson is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Aurora, where he leads a world-class team in bringing self-driving technology to the transportation industry quickly, broadly, and safely. Over the last 15 years Chris has worked to advance self-driving technology and bring it to market. Chris helped found the self-driving car team at Alphabet and led the team for seven years. Prior, Chris was a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University, and was the technical director for the winning team of the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Chris has a Ph.D in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
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About Aurora: Aurora is a self-driving vehicle company providing a platform that brings software and data services to operate passenger vehicles.
Sterling Anderson
Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Aurora
Sterling Anderson is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Aurora, the company delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. A longtime developer of autonomous vehicle technology, Sterling developed the MIT Intelligent Co-Pilot, a shared autonomy framework that paved the way for broad advances in cooperative control of human-machine systems. In 2014, he joined Tesla, where he lead the design, development, and launch of the Tesla Model X, then led the team that delivered Tesla Autopilot. Sterling holds several patents and over a dozen publications in autonomous vehicle systems, and an MS and PhD from MIT.
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About Aurora: Aurora is a self-driving vehicle company providing a platform that brings software and data services to operate passenger vehicles.
Alex Rodrigues
CEO & Co-Founder of Embark Trucks
Embark is working to make the self-driving future a reality. While most of the spectacle has been around passenger vehicles, Embark is working to revolutionize $700 billion commercial trucking industry, the backbone of our economy. Commercial transport stands to reap untold benefits by deploying automated trucks – particularly during the “long haul” stretches. Alex studied Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo.
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About Embark Trucks: Embark develops self-driving truck technology designed for freight and logistic services.
Rodney Williams
Co-Founder | Chairman of LISNR
Rodney Williams is the co-founder of SoLo Funds and LISNR.
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About LISNR, LISNR, SoLo Funds: LISNR enables secure and seamless data transmission using the most advanced ultrasonic data technology
William Dean Donovan
Co-Founder & Managing Director of DiamondStream Partners
Dean Donovan co-founded Volaris, Mexico’s largest domestic airline, and continues to sit on the Board of Directors, with a focus on technology transformation. The company has been listed on the NYSE since 2013, employs an Ultra Low Cost Carrier (ULCC) business model, and flies in Mexico, Canada, Central America and the US. He also co-founded Casino Marketing Alliance, a provider of marketing and analytics services to the casino industry. He helped form Metropolitan Bankgroup, where he served as Chairman of the Compensation Committee. Metropolitan was sold to Renasant in 2017. Mr. Donovan sits on the board of Stellar Labs, a software company focused on global distribution technologies for private aviation, and is the past Chairman. He also sits on the board of Prophet, a marketing consultancy, and twice served as Chair of the Special Committee during the firm’s recapitalization efforts. Mr. Donovan has also served as COO of Nimblefish Technologies, a micro-marketing technology platform and as CEO of SearchForce, a paid search workflow management and optimization platform. Prior to this, between 1989 and 2003 Mr. Donovan worked with Bain & Company, consulting to executives in the United States, Europe, Africa and Latin America. He was head of Bain’s airline practice and auto practice at various times. Mr. Donovan received his MBA with honors from the Wharton School and his B.A. from University of California Berkeley, where he graduated with Honors in Rhetoric and Economics, Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude.
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About DiamondStream Partners: DiamondStream Partners is a manager that invests in the future of travel and aviation.
Porter Harris
Founder + Vision, Direction, Values & Technology of Power Global
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About 174 Power Global, Power Global: Enabling efficient, reliable, cost competitive, and industry leading electrification for global markets
Wes Selke
Managing Director & Founder of Better Ventures
Wes is Managing Director and Co-Founder of Better Ventures. He’s the resident “numbers guy” and enjoys helping startups figure out how they’re going to make and raise money. Wes has 15 years of venture capital and financial advisory experience with Good Capital’s Social Enterprise Expansion Fund, William Blair, and Ernst & Young’s Mergers & Acquisitions group. He earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and a BBA from the University of Michigan. Wes has volunteered with organizations around the globe, which has fueled his passion for applying his business skills to build a better world. He lives in Oakland, CA with his wife and two young kids and enjoys road cycling in the East Bay hills and Sunday trips to the farmers market.
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About Better Ventures, Good Capital: Better Ventures backs entrepreneurs building a better world.
Rick Moss
Managing Director & Founder of Better Ventures
Rick is Managing Director and Founder of Better Ventures. He thrives on solving customer development challenges for startups and spends most of his waking hours at the whiteboard. He has 18 years of technology, entrepreneurship and corporate venture capital experience with Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Computer Sciences Corporation, The Modem Shop (which he founded) and Kleiner Perkins-backed WineShopper.com (acquired by Wine.com). He holds a BA from Trinity College and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College. Rick believes passionately that technology should be used to address the world’s most important problems. Rick lives in Oakland, CA with his wife and two kids, is an avid cyclist and a craft beer enthusiast.
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About Better Ventures: Better Ventures backs entrepreneurs building a better world.
Elliot Kroo
Founder and CTO of Getaround
Elliot Kroo is the CTO and Founder of Getaround.
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About Getaround: Getaround is a peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace that enables car owners to rent out their cars.
Sam Zaid
Founder & CEO of Getaround
Sam is Founder & CEO at Getaround.
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About Arconex, Getaround: Getaround is a peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace that enables car owners to rent out their cars.
Moncef Abbou
Founder of CurbStand
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About CurbStand: Seamless, cashless valet parking in Los Angeles. Pay & tip right from your phone.
Vic Shao
Founder and CEO of Amply Power
Vic is Chief Executive Officer of Green Charge Networks. Vic is the visionary and driving force behind the company’s overall direction and product strategy. He leads the development of its core technology and system infrastructure. Since 2009, Vic has been collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy and Fortune 500 companies on a ROI-driven energy storage appliance for the private sector, complementary to solar PV. With more than 15 years experience in software development and complex system implementation, Vic is passionate in applying software to improve power efficiency. He started his high tech career with Oracle Corporation, eventually leading engineering and product teams in Oracle’s middleware division. Prior to co-founding Green Charge Networks, Vic held engineering and management positions at several cloud computing software companies. He holds more than 12 published / granted patents in cloud computing and power efficiency. Vic holds a Master of Business Administration degree from UC Berkeley and an engineering degree from the University of Virginia, magna cum laude.
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About Amply Power, Music Intelligence Solutions: Amply Power provides commercial fleet operations a charging-as-a-service approach to help fleets transaction to electric vehicles.
Rob Kelly
Founder and VP Business Development of Amply Power
Robert Kelly is the vice president of business development at AMPLY Power.
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About Amply Power: Amply Power provides commercial fleet operations a charging-as-a-service approach to help fleets transaction to electric vehicles.
Jin Shieh
Co-Founder & CTO of CloudTrucks
Jin Shieh is the CTO and Co-Founder at CloudTrucks.
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About CloudTrucks: CloudTrucks offers a virtual trucking carrier application designed to reduce operating costs for truck drivers.
Stefan Seltz-Axmacher
Founder & CEO of Starsky Robotics
Stefan Seltz-Axmacher is CEO and Founder of Starsky Robotics, a driverless truck startup launched in August 2016, which aims to make roads safer and allow truck drivers to work closer to home. Starsky Robotics began moving freight on the highway in February 2017, and in February 2018 drove a truck fully unmanned for seven miles on the highway. Starsky raised a $16.5 million Series A round led by Shasta Ventures, with substantial contributions from previous investors like Y Combinator, Trucks.vc, 50 Years, 9Point Ventures, and many others. Prior to founding Starsky Robotics, Stefan worked with a number of Silicon Valley startups, partnering with innovators in logistics and engineering fields. He holds a degree in International Business from Drexel University.
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About Starsky Robotics: Starsky Robotics is a San Francisco-based autonomous trucking company.
Val Miftakhov
Founder & CEO of ZeroAvia
Val Miftakhov is a Founder & CEO of ZeroAvia, Inc, a California company developing the World’s first practical zero emission aviation powertrain. Val is a serial entrepreneur in EV space – his previous company eMotorWerks has developed the World’s leading platform for EV battery aggregation to provide grid services, and was acquired in 2017. Prior to that, Val held a number of senior business and product positions at Google and McKinsey & Company, and was a nuclear researcher at Stanford Linear Accelerator. Val holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University, Masters in Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and was a two-time winner of Russian Nationwide Physics competitions. In his spare time, Val makes good use of his airplane and helicopter pilot licenses.
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About ZeroAvia: ZeroAvia produces practical zero emission aviation powertrain targeting 9-19-passenger airplanes to start replacing dirty jet fuel.
Paz Eshel
Co-Founder & COO of Kodiak Robotics
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About Kodiak Robotics: Kodiak Robotics develops autonomous technology for long-haul trucking.
Don Burnette
Co-Founder & CEO of Kodiak Robotics
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About Kodiak Robotics: Kodiak Robotics develops autonomous technology for long-haul trucking.
Behrooz Abiri
CTO and Co-Founder of GuRu
A hardware hobbyist and International Physics Olympiad gold medalist – Behrooz has always been an avid inventor. He’s spent his life studying, learning, and exploring emerging technologies. His work at GuRu stems from a wish to share miraculous technology with the world at large. At GuRu, Behrooz is responsible for the ongoing development of core technology and system architecture. Under his leadership, GuRu’s millimeter-wave technology has been developed into an accessible consumer product. Before GuRu, Behrooz helped develop system design and architecture in Caltech’s Space Solar Power Initiative. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech.
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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
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
Alfonso De los Rios
CEO & Co-Founder of Nowports
Alfonso De los Rios is a co-founder and the chief technology officer of Nowports.
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About Nowports: Nowports is a digital freight forwarder that automates the supply chain processes of Latin American companies.
Maximiliano Casal
Co-Founder & COO of Nowports
Co-founder Nowports (YC W19 & YCG S20), a Logistics & trade SaaS platform. Max is a Software Engineer with more than 9 years of experience in different projects. Persistent, methodical & innovative.
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About Nowports: Nowports is a digital freight forwarder that automates the supply chain processes of Latin American companies.
Volkmar Uhlig
Co-Founder & CTO of Ghost
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About Ghost: Ghost is developing the revolutionary technology that finally makes self-driving safe.
John Hayes
Founder & CEO of Ghost
John Hayes joined John Colgrove to co-found Pure Storage in 2009 after serving in Yahoo!’s Office of the Chief Technologist, where he investigated web architectures for collaborative development of highly-reliable systems. He joined Yahoo! via the acquisition of Bix, where he was a founding engineer. His work prior to Yahoo! focused on developing distributed platforms for real-time interpersonal interaction in a variety of areas including entertainment, medicine, psychology, and defense. During this time, he became interested in the underlying architecture of reliable distributed systems, particularly those built from unreliable components. His diverse experiences have led him to develop new approaches to make today’s increasingly complex distributed systems more reliable. John holds a degree in Computer and Systems Engineering from Guelph University in Ontario, Canada.
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About Ghost: Ghost is developing the revolutionary technology that finally makes self-driving safe.
Charles Acknin
Co-Founder & CEO of Skyways
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About Skyways: Skyways is creating a new form of transportation to advance our civilization.
Steve Wen
Co-Founder & CEO of Dray Alliance
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About Dray Alliance: Dray Alliance is a trucking industry with a technology platform that makes deliveries to warehouses simple, predictable, and transparent.
Hank Cui
Co-Founder & CTO of Dray Alliance
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About Dray Alliance: Dray Alliance is a trucking industry with a technology platform that makes deliveries to warehouses simple, predictable, and transparent.
Balaji Prabhakar
Founder & Chief Scientist of Urban Engines
Balaji is Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of Urban Engines. He is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Stanford University, and the Director of the Stanford Center for Societal Networks. Among Balaji’s many awards and honors is the inaugural IEEE Innovation in Societal Infrastructure Award, which recognizes, “significant technological achievements and contributions to the establishment, development, and proliferation of innovative societal infrastructure systems.” He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Future Urban Mobility Initiative of the World Economic Forum.
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About Stanford University, Urban Engines: Urban Engines combines big data and spatial analytics to improve urban mobility.
Deepak Merugu
Founder of Urban Engines
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About Urban Engines: Urban Engines combines big data and spatial analytics to improve urban mobility.
Chajianl Shivakumar
CEO and Co-Founder of Urban Engines
Shiva is the CEO and Co-Founder of Urban Engines. Prior to Urban Engines, from 2001 through 2010, Shiva was a Vice President and Distinguished Entrepreneur at Google, helping to build AdSense, Search Appliances, Cloud Apps, and research and development centers across the world. With a deep interest in open data, Shiva created Sitemaps.org to surface Web data with an industry-first collaboration between Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. Shiva has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University, where he was awarded the Arthur Samuel Best Thesis Award.
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About Urban Engines: Urban Engines combines big data and spatial analytics to improve urban mobility.
Derrick Xiong
Co-Founder & CMO of Ehang
Yifang (Derrick) Xiong is the Co-Founder of EHang, Inc.Prior to this, he Co-founded theRocketSpace Inc. He worked as Chairman of Student Council at Nanyang Technological University. Before that, he was the Analyst at Credit Suisse.
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About Ehang: Ehang is a technology enterprise focused on R&D and production in airplane and aircraft field.
Jigar Shah
Founder & CEO of Miles
Jigar Shah is the Founder & CEO of Miles. Formerly he was a Senior Product Manager & Technical Leader at Cisco with P&L responsibilities over $750M.
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About Miles: Miles is a startup that offers rewards for traveling, regardless of the mode of transportation.
Daniel Huang
Founder & CEO of Immotor
Daniel is the founder and CEO of Immotor. As a strategic visionary, Daniel has dedicated Immotor’s resources to the research and development of the world’s first intelligent electric personal transport powered by its own engineered “Super Battery”, a revolutionary green power management system. Previously, Daniel was the founder and CEO of mophie, where he led the company to become a pioneer in the market of intelligent smartphone accessories and to be recognized globally as a leader in the smartphone portable power market. The company’s products are sold in over 100 countries and more than 25,000 retail stores. Daniel is the inventor of the mophie juice pack, world’s first iPhone battery case that is now used by more than 15 million customers around the world. In 2012, mophie was ranked #20 on the Inc. 500’s list of America’s fastest growing company in the consumer products and services industry. Daniel was recognized as one of the top 15 East Asian Entrepreneurs in the U.S.. In 2013, Daniel was named the finalist of the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Prior to mophie, Daniel was CEO of GGEC America from 1996 -2006. GGEC is publicly listed on the China stock market and is one of Asia’s leading audio electronic products manufacturers. Daniel is well known and respected by his colleagues and business partners for being able to see the big picture, while nailing the details. Not only is he a strategic thinker, he is also an avid inventor with multiple patents in the field of mobile power, mobile intelligence and consumer products. Daniel holds a Master of Business Administration with Beta Gamma Sigma honors from University of Southern California and a Bachelor Degree in Electric Engineering from Xi’An JiaoTong University, China.
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About Immotor: Immotor develops and sells portable and personal transport systems.
Alek Vernitsky
Co-Founder & CEO of Portside
Alek Verntisky, co-founder and CEO of Portside, Inc., is a technology entrepreneur, business executive, and leader with more than ten years of experience in developing forward-thinking and innovative technology-enabled services for commercial and business aviation.
Before founding Portside, Inc he co-founded GetGoing, Inc., an industry-leading revenue, commission, and payments optimization platform for the global commercial aviation industry. GetGoing was acquired by BCD Travel, the second largest corporate agency in the world, in January 2016, after reaching annual sales of over $1B.
His passion for aviation, natural ability to innovate and develop new products combined with his genuine interest in helping aviation businesses achieve growth and profitability drove Alek to launch Portside in 2017. Since then, Portside has grown rapidly and transitioned into an integrated platform that seamlessly connects all participants in the global business aviation industry. It enables instant exchange of data, brings transparency to aircraft operations and offers robust analytics, optimization, billing, and reporting functionality. Today Portside serves over 200 customers, powering modern flight departments, charter operators, FBOs, and government fleet operators in over 30 countries.
Alek holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Legal Studies from the University of California in Berkeley. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two young boys.
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About Portside: Portside is developing a modern, cloud-based operating system for business and government aviation: a set of integrated solutions addressing major industry pain points. The Portside platform supports over 150 operators of business jets, helicopters, industrial and government fleets, as well as fractional jet ownership programs in over 30 countries. Portside is headquartered in San Francisco with team members across the US, Europe and Asia.
Alden Woodrow
Co-Founder & CEO of Ike
Co-Founder & CEO at Ike
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About Ike: Ike is a self driving truck startup, focused on building automation technology to help improve the trucking industry.
Nancy Sun
Co-Founder & Chief Engineer of Ike
Nancy Sun is the Co-Founder and Chief Engineer of Ike, an automated trucking startup building cutting-edge automation technology to help improve the trucking industry in the safest way possible. Prior to founding Ike, Nancy was the Engineering Lead for the self-driving truck program at Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, which she joined via the Otto acquisition in 2016. Nancy’s deep expertise in systems engineering and transportation extends beyond Uber to Apple, where she was an Engineering Manager for their Special Projects Group, and electric motorcycle startup Mission Motors, where she was the VP of Advanced Development. Nancy has bachelors and masters degrees in Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and it was during her years at MIT that she first developed a love of robotics.
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About Ike: Ike is a self driving truck startup, focused on building automation technology to help improve the trucking industry.
Jur van den Berg
CTO & Co-Founder of Ike
Dr. Jur van den Berg is CTO and co-founder at automated trucking startup Ike. He is passionate about bringing automated vehicle technology to the road as a product. Dr. Van den Berg has developed technology for multiple leading companies in the automated vehicle space, including Google (now Waymo), Apple, Otto, and Uber. He holds a PhD in computer science from Utrecht University, and has taught robotics as a professor at the University of Utah. Dr. Van den Berg’s experience has contributed to a strong belief in the specific application of AV technology to moving freight on highways, as it meaningfully constrains the technical problem, while at the same time positively impacting truckers and the trucking industry as a whole.
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About Ike: Ike is a self driving truck startup, focused on building automation technology to help improve the trucking industry.
Joel Ifill
Founder & CEO of DASH Systems
Founder of DASH Systems. Specializing in precision aerial delivery and automated air cargo delivery systems.
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About DASH Systems: DASH Systems is a tech company developing hardware and software to enable precision airdrop deliveries.
Jeffrey O’Neill
Founder/CEO of Zephyr Aerospace
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About flyClever, Zephyr Aerospace: Zephyr Aerospace designs affordable lie-flat seating solutions for transportation companies.
Deepansh Jain
Founder & CTO of Scooterson
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About Scooterson: Intelligent electric vehicles of the future.
Mihnea de Vries
Founder and CEO of Scooterson
Mihnea de Vries is entrepreneur and filmmaker, with 20+ years of experience in technology start-ups, marketing, and film. Back in 1996, Mihnea launched the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) in his hometown. Later, he started filming and directing TV ads and music videos, also pioneering aerial cinematography with drones. His latest quest is to change the way of how we ride around the cities.
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About Scooterson: Intelligent electric vehicles of the future.
Will Harvey
Founder, Head of Technology of ClearMetal
Will Harvey is a Engineering & Founder at ClearMetal.
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About ClearMetal: Leading Supply Chain & Logistics Solution Utilizing Continuous Delivery Experience (CDX)
Jake Koppinger
Founder of FreightRoll
Jake Koppinger is the Founder of 22X Fund.
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About 22X Fund, FreightRoll: Inventory custody transfer and visibility platform
Kelly Perdew
Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Moonshots Capital
Co-Founder & Managing General Partner at Moonshots Capital.
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About Moonshots Capital, TargetClose: Seed stage venture capital firm that invests in extraordinary leadership.
Kirk Hawkins
Founder & CEO of ICON Aircraft
Kirk Hawkins is the Founder & CEO of ICON Aircraft.
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About ICON Aircraft: ICON Aircraft manufactures consumer-friendly, safe, technologically advanced aircrafts.
Jan Becker
CEO & Co-Founder of Apex.AI
Pioneering Automated Driving and Robotics leader who has been engineering innovations in autonomous/automated driving, robotics, artificial intelligence, and hardware/software design and development. History of working on robotics and automotive projects in the US & Europe. Practical technology manager who recognizes the value of user-centered design principles, iterative development, and ongoing testing to deliver useful products that people want. Significant research and development contributions in driver assistance, automated driving, vehicle safety systems, personal robotics, shared autonomy. Powerful global network of robotics, AI and automotive professionals, having worked on high-profile projects at Bosch and Stanford University. 20+ years of experience in vehicle automation 10+ years of experience in leading high performance technical teams 5+ years of experience in teaching at Stanford University 50+ patents in automated driving and driver assistance List of publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan_Becker3 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UBDpyhQAAAAJ
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About Apex.AI, Stanford University: Apex.AI is building an operating system for autonomous vehicles.
Dejan Pangercic
CTO & Co-Founder of Apex.AI
Dejan Pangercic and Jan Becker founded Apex.AI in 2017.
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About Apex.AI: Apex.AI is building an operating system for autonomous vehicles.
Jonny Simkin
CEO & Co-Founder of Swiftly
Jonny Simkin is the co-founder and CEO of Swiftly, a San Francisco-based technology company that has created an industry-leading big data platform to help public transit agencies improve their operational performance, service reliability, and real-time passenger information. Living in San Francisco and having experienced the challenges of urban mobility first hand, Jonny is on a mission to reduce urban congestion and carbon emissions in cities across the world. Prior to founding Swiftly, Jonny was the Director of Product at Rafter Inc., where he helped nearly 3 million students save over $700 million on college textbooks. Before Rafter, Jonny was the co-founder and CEO of SwoopThat and HubEdu (acquired in 2012), where he built a leading online textbook comparison engine. Jonny holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering with an Economics Concentration from Harvey Mudd College. In his spare time, he enjoys hockey, ping pong, tennis, and coffee.
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About Swiftly: Swiftly develops enterprise software that helps transit agencies and cities improve urban mobility.
Mike Smith
CIO & Technical Co-Founder of Swiftly
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About Swiftly: Swiftly develops enterprise software that helps transit agencies and cities improve urban mobility.
Will Dayton
CTO & Co-Founder of Swiftly
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About Swiftly: Swiftly develops enterprise software that helps transit agencies and cities improve urban mobility.
Muhammad Huzaifa
Founder & CEO of ChargeWheel
Founder & CEO at ChargeWheel
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About ChargeWheel: ChargeWheel operates an on-demand charging solution for operators of electric vehicles and micromobility fleets in California.
Marco Filippi
CEO & Founder of Volvero
I’m a committed and energetic person, fascinated by new knowledges and stimulated by new challenges. My area of interests are: Startups, Blockchain & ICO, Sharing economy, Sport, Food & Wines. Text me if you want to talk about the last DLT development as well as the best restaurant you have been in!
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About Volvero: Volvero is an app based on the most innovative technologies for sharing vehicles.
Nicholas Cooper
Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Volato
Nicholas Cooper is the co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Volato.
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About Volato, Yoco: Volato is the modern way to buy and own a private jet, focused on 1-4 passenger flights.
John Taggart
Co-Founder and CTO of WeaveGrid
John Taggart is the co-founder and CTO of Weave Grid.
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About WeaveGrid: WeaveGrid develops electrification software for the scalable deployment of electric vehicles on the electric grid.
Chris Upjohn
Founder of MagicBus
Founder at MagicBus
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About MagicBus: MagicBus provides long-distance commuters a stress-free way to get to work.
Rudd Davis
Founder & CEO of BlackBird
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About BlackBird, Swarm Mobile: BlackBird is on a mission to make flying as convenient and affordable as driivng
Jamie Loberman
Co-Founder / Product & Engineering of BlackBird
Jamie Loberman product and engineering and co-founder at Blackbird. He is a product and engineering entrepreneur pursuing the mission to make flying as convenient and affordable as driving.
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About BlackBird: BlackBird is on a mission to make flying as convenient and affordable as driivng
CMO/Co-Founder of SUPER73
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About SUPER73, SUPER73: SUPER73 is an American lifestyle adventure brand fusing motorcycle heritage and youth culture.
Evangelos Simoudis
Founder and Managing Director of Synapse Partners
Evangelos Simoudis is the Board Director of eXelate.He joined Trident Capital in 2005 as a Venture Partner and has been a Managing Director since 2007. Evangelos focuses on investments in Internet and Enterprise Software businesses. Prior to Trident, Evangelos spent 5 years as a partner at Apax Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm where he invested and served on the boards of early and mid-stage IT companies. At Apax he also chaired the firmâs IT advisory board. Prior to entering venture capital, Evangelos had more than 20 years experience in high-technology industries, in executive roles spanning operations, marketing, sales and engineering. His experience as a technology executive includes serving as President and CEO of Customer Analytics, a Trident-backed, eCRM company acquired by Xchange, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXAP), and as Vice President of Business Intelligence Solutions at IBM. Evangelos’ current directorships include,DesiHits,Hip Digital,Host Analytics,PivotLink Software. Prior Directorships include,Bristol Technology (acquired by Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ)), Composite Software, Confluent Software (acquired by Oracle Corporation (Nasdaq: ORCL)), Doppelganger (acquired by Hip Digital), Princeton Softech (acquired by IBM),Vidavee (acquired by Vignette (NASDAQ: VIGN) .Evangelos earned a PhD in Computer Science from Brandeis University.BS in Electrical Engineering from Caltech.
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About Synapse Partners: Synapse Partners invests in early-stage startups developing horizontal or vertical enterprise software AI applications.
Chris Gerdes
Founder and Principal Scientist of Peloton Technology
Chris is a world-renowned expert in vehicle dynamics and safety, and the director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford, which counts as its members key transportation industry players. Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Gerdes was the project leader for vehicle dynamics for Freightliner trucks. At Stanford, Chris has developed several pioneering automated vehicles, including the autonomous racecar Audi TTS, which famously climbed Pikes Peak. Chris’s work blends the rigor of safety critical systems, with the need to work well with the human driver. Chris holds an BSME from UPenn, and a PhD from UC Berkeley.
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About Peloton Technology, Stanford University: Peloton is a connected and automated vehicle technology company improving safety and efficiency in the trucking industry.
Stuart Rudick
Founder of Water Innovation Accelerator
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About Mindfull Investors, Water Innovation Accelerator: Water Innovation Accelerator specializes in wastewater management, water infrastructure, data science and ocean conservation.
Chess Stetson
Founder and CEO of dRISK
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About dRISK: DRISK is an autonomous vehicle company that provides smoother and safer AVs solutions for the vehicle industry.
Charlene Consolacion
CEO & Co-Founder of Biig
Charlene Consolacion co-founded the World’s First Smart Lockbox for Cars: The BiigVault, transforming the automotive industry by introducing a secured and smart lockbox into vehicles, enabling a wide-array of on-demand automotive services such as in-car trunk delivery. Charlene is constantly innovating in the dynamic and high-tech sphere. This patented system is easy to install, allowing customers to use their smartphones to control, monitor a wide range of connected car capabilities, and access on-demand services.
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About Biig, Phrame: BiigVault: The Smart Lockbox for Cars
Katherine DeWald
CEO and Co-Founder of Oncue
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About Oncue: Booking and software platform for moving companies
Khaled Naim
Co-Founder & CEO of Onfleet
Khaled is CEO and Co-Founder at Onfleet, the leading last-mile delivery management software platform. Khaled holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a BE in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan. Khaled is based in San Francisco, California.
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About Onfleet: Onfleet is a technology company that develops last-mile delivery management software.
David Vetrano
Co-Founder & CTO of Onfleet
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About Onfleet: Onfleet is a technology company that develops last-mile delivery management software.
Richard Wang
CEO/Co-Founder of Cuberg
CEO and Co-Founder at Cuberg
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About Cuberg: Cuberg is a company delivering lithium metal cells produced on existing lithium-ion manufacturing lines for electromobility solutions.
Khaled Hassounah
CEO & Founder of Ample
A visionary technologist, Khaled has recruited and built technical teams across multiple early-stage startups and managed them through rapid growth to deliver successful and innovative products. Khaled has proven experience in building and deploying scalable software that has been used and continues to be used by tens of millions of enterprise and online users across multiple verticals. He has also set up and managed teams across India, China and the Middle East. Prior to MedHelp, he was a founding member of IMlogic, an instant messaging security software company acquired by Symantec, where he built the tech team and managed the delivery of three successful product offerings. Khaled was also the a founding member of One World Software Solutions, a technical consulting company that grew to span three continents, and was part of the NetDocs team at Microsoft. Khaled holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Jordan.
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About Ample, MedHelp, NetDocs: Ample utilizes autonomous robotics and smart-battery technology to solve the energy delivery challenge for electric transportation.
Taran Syali
Founder & CEO of Zaldee, Inc
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About Zaldee, Inc: Zaldee® is an online community marketplace which connects travelers and senders. Zaldee is Airbnb of the shipping industry
Tyler Collins
Co-Founder and Advisor of Rad Power Bikes
Ty Collins is the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Rad Power Bikes.
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About Rad Power Bikes: North America’s largest electric bike company. We are making transportation energy efficient, enjoyable, and accessible to all.
Ezra Goldman
Co-Founder & CEO of Upshift
Ezra Goldman is founder & CEO of Upshift. He managed a software startup in Copenhagen for 2 years, spent 5 years as a human centered design strategist and has 22 years experience in shared transportation services since cofounding a bikeshare service in 1999. Ezra has never owned a car and has been a shared mobility pioneer: 1999-2003: Bikeshare 2006: Folding EV scootershare 2008: Carshare 2008: Rideshare 2009-10: P2P carshare 2011: Multi-modal trip planner app 2011-12: Emerging market carshare 2011-13: Fractional carshare 2014-: Autonomous carshare His background combines a depth of understanding on people’s needs, business strategy, environmental issues, urban systems, and the potential of technology. He combines these elements to drive market oriented, systemic change at the highest point of leverage possible. Specialties Entrepreneurship, user centered design, design strategy, urban planning and urban design, transportation planning, concept generation and innovation, mobile technology and social media.
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About Upshift: Fractional car memberships
