YC Winter 2018 (W18) companies

Aalo builds modular, mix-and-match furniture for design-conscious consumers. The pieces connect in a Lego-like system, letting buyers configure and reconfigure their own arrangements rather than purchasing fixed, single-use pieces.

Acely builds an AI-powered SAT and ACT prep platform for high school students, replacing traditional prep courses and private tutors. It runs a diagnostic, then generates a personalized daily study plan that adapts as the student progresses, drawing on a library of practice questions and full-length tests. The product targets families who want score improvement without the cost or rigidity of conventional test prep.

Aerones builds robotic systems for wind turbine inspection and maintenance, serving wind operators and turbine manufacturers. Its robots handle blade and tower work including lightning conductivity testing, high-resolution inspection, drainage hole cleaning, blade cleaning, painting, and leading-edge repair. The systems replace manual rope-access and conventional inspection crews for tasks that are slow, costly, and hazardous at height.

AesculaTech engineers proprietary smart hydrogels that change properties in response to temperature and other stimuli, then builds those materials into biomedical, industrial, and cosmetic products. Its lead product, Humidifeye, is a punctal plug for dry eye disease: a form-fitting smart gel that seats in the tear duct, adapts to the patient's anatomy, and replaces conventional rigid plugs that can extrude or cause discomfort. The platform is also being developed for high-strength films and next-generation composites across medical, industrial, and cosmetic applications.

AlgoSurg Inc builds AI software for surgical planning and automation, sold to implant OEMs, robotic surgery system makers, navigation and AR/VR platforms, and 3D-printing providers. The platform handles image segmentation, anatomical landmarking, implant sizing, and cloud-based planning workflows, replacing the slow, manual work that surgical device companies would otherwise build or perform in-house. Customers deploy it under their own brand without constructing the full image-to-plan engine themselves.

Anjuna builds software that runs applications inside hardware-enforced secure enclaves, protecting data from malicious insiders, compromised infrastructure, and external attackers. Enterprises move existing workloads into enclaves across memory, storage, networks, and clouds without rewriting code. The product also isolates AI agents and enables multi-party data collaboration where each party's data and models stay cryptographically separated from the other.

ArchForm builds orthodontic treatment-planning software that lets orthodontists design clear aligners and 3D print them in-office, cutting out the outsourced lab workflow that Invisalign and similar services require. Orthodontists go from a scanned STL file to a finalized setup in roughly ten minutes, then produce an aligner or indirect-bonding tray on-site in as little as thirty minutes. The platform also connects to ArchForm's own robotic factory in California for practices that prefer a shipped product, replacing both expensive third-party aligner subscriptions and the manual back-and-forth of traditional treatment planning.

Aspire builds a finance operating system for small and mid-sized businesses, replacing the patchwork of a business bank account, bookkeeper, and expense tools with a single platform. It covers payments, multi-currency accounts, corporate cards, expense and budget management, accounts receivable, procure-to-pay, payroll, and treasury. The target customer is the founder-led or fast-growing company that needs corporate financial infrastructure without the overhead of a traditional banking relationship.

Assembly builds a client experience platform for professional service firms, replacing scattered email threads, spreadsheets, and one-off tools with a branded portal that centralizes tasks, payments, messages, files, contracts, and forms. Firms also get a CRM and an AI assistant that carries full client context, so teams can run onboarding and back-office work without switching between systems. Custom apps, embeds, and API integrations let firms extend the platform to fit their exact workflow.

Atrium builds a technology-backed law firm serving startups on corporate legal work. Its proprietary platform, Atrium LTS, drives efficiency and transparency into legal workflows that traditional firms handle through billable-hour billing and manual processes. Clients get legal services delivered through a structured, software-enabled operation rather than a conventional attorney-client engagement.

Avro Life Science develops topical drug delivery platforms that enable drug molecules to pass passively through the skin, a route that conventional formulations cannot achieve. Its technology targets medical dermatology, replacing systemic drug delivery methods with transdermal alternatives for generic and novel therapeutics. The company is at the clinical stage, advancing a pipeline of drug candidates built on its proprietary platform.

Beanstalk builds vertical farming technology that grows leafy greens, herbs, and root vegetables for local restaurants and consumers. The system automates the cultivation work that indoor farms traditionally handle by hand, covering planting through harvest. Produce is grown close to the point of use, replacing supply chains that deliver less-fresh crops from distant conventional farms.

Bear Flag Robotics builds autonomous driving technology for farm tractors, retrofitting tractors and implements with hardware and software so growers can run common field operations without manual labor. The technology targets the farm labor shortage and removes workers from hazardous conditions. Alongside automation, it delivers crop and operations analytics that growers can act on directly.

Ben builds a mobile app that lets beginners learn about, buy, sell, and store cryptocurrency in one place. It combines a wallet and exchange with in-app education, crypto news, and investing Q&As, replacing the need to juggle separate wallets, exchanges, and external resources to get started in crypto.

Biobot Analytics turns municipal wastewater into a population health intelligence platform, tracking over 50 pathogens and substances, from SARS-CoV-2 and influenza to fentanyl and methamphetamine. Government agencies and pharmaceutical companies use the data to detect outbreaks and drug trends before they surface in clinical or law-enforcement reports, replacing the lag inherent in hospital surveillance and official case counts.

BioRender builds a web-based design platform for scientists, covering figures, graphs, slides, graphical abstracts, and protocols. It serves academic researchers and research institutions who previously pieced together scientific visuals using general-purpose design tools or manual illustration. A library of scientifically accurate icons and templates lets researchers produce publication-ready figures without design expertise.

Blueberry Pediatrics gives families unlimited, on-demand access to board-certified pediatricians around the clock, replacing unplanned urgent care and ER visits. Members receive an at-home diagnostic kit that lets pediatricians diagnose and treat a wider range of illnesses remotely, covering flu and strep tests alongside virtual consultations. The service also runs proactive screenings for behavioral, developmental, and mental health concerns between visits.

California Dreamin makes all-natural cannabis-infused beverages positioned as an alternative to alcohol. The products target adult consumers seeking a cannabis-based drink option in place of traditional alcoholic beverages.

CaptivateIQ builds incentive compensation management software for B2B sales organizations, replacing manual commission calculations done in spreadsheets. Compensation, finance, and revenue operations teams use it to design commission plans, automate payouts, and model territories and quotas. The platform connects to existing data sources and surfaces commission detail directly to sales reps.

ClearBrain builds a self-serve causal analytics platform for growth marketing teams. It automatically generates user predictions and surfaces retargeting opportunities, replacing the custom machine learning infrastructure that only large engineering organizations like Uber or Google could previously build in-house. Fortune 1000 companies use it to personalize experiences across hundreds of millions of predictions.

Closer Sports builds a mobile streaming platform that connects professional athletes directly with fans, replacing traditional broadcast intermediaries as the channel through which athletes share live content.

CodeStream builds a developer collaboration platform that lives inside the IDE, letting engineers request and conduct code reviews without leaving their editor. It supports feedback on work-in-progress, including uncommitted and unpushed code, replacing the round-trip friction of committing, pushing, and switching to an external review tool before work is ready.

Cognition IP delivers patent and trademark counsel to startups and enterprises, handling filing, prosecution, and portfolio management. Its attorneys, trained at top-tier firms on Fortune 500 matters, use IP analytics to replace the opaque, hourly billing model of traditional law firms with a predictable, on-demand service.

CoinTracker builds cryptocurrency portfolio tracking and tax compliance software for individual investors and businesses. It aggregates crypto holdings and transaction history to calculate gains, losses, and tax obligations, replacing manual spreadsheet work and error-prone self-reporting. The product serves anyone holding or trading digital assets who needs an accurate, audit-ready view of their crypto finances.

Correlia Biosystems builds microfluidic blood-testing tools that quantify proteins and other biomolecules from a single microliter of sample. Its SimpleScan platform gives pharmaceutical researchers continuous protein expression monitoring across a sample run, replacing conventional endpoint assays that capture only a single snapshot. The technology also targets point-of-care diagnostics, expanding its reach beyond the lab.

Culture Biosciences runs cell culture experiments and develops bioprocessing workflows on behalf of biotech companies, replacing the need for customers to operate their own bioreactor infrastructure. Clients, who engineer organisms to produce therapeutics, materials, fuels, and food ingredients, use Culture Biosciences to run experiments and build manufacturing processes faster. Proprietary automation hardware and cloud-based software handle bioreactor operation, data analysis, and remote experiment management.

Curious Fictions builds a reading platform for professional short-fiction authors and their fans. Authors publish and monetize their work directly, replacing the need for traditional publishing intermediaries. Readers browse and consume short stories on mobile, tipping authors for individual pieces they enjoy.

Dataform builds a workflow tool for data teams that manage SQL pipelines inside cloud data warehouses such as Snowflake, BigQuery, and Redshift. It gives analysts and engineers a structured way to write, version-control, and deploy SQL transformations, replacing ad-hoc query management and manual dependency tracking. Google Cloud acquired Dataform in December 2020.

Dear Brightly delivers prescription-strength retinoid skincare directly to consumers through an online telehealth platform, replacing in-person dermatologist visits. Customers complete a skin assessment and share photos, board-certified dermatologists review each case and tailor a tretinoin-based formula, and the product ships to the door. The work it replaces is the traditional clinic visit required to obtain a prescription retinoid.

Draftbit builds a visual development platform for creating native mobile and web apps, targeting founders, entrepreneurs, and non-engineers who want to ship products without writing code from scratch. Users drag and drop UI components, connect backends, and publish directly to the web, iOS, and Android, replacing the need to hand-write frontend code or hire a full engineering team from the start. AI agents and on-demand human experts are available inside the product to accelerate builds.

Edwin builds an AI-powered English tutoring service that combines adaptive learning, natural language understanding, and on-demand human instructors to deliver personalized, one-on-one language practice. After merging with MyBuddy.ai in early 2020, the combined company operates as Buddy.ai, centering on a voice-based mobile app that gives children conversational English practice they cannot get from passive study. The product targets the hundreds of millions of young learners worldwide who stall at fluency for lack of a speaking partner.

EnvKey builds an end-to-end encrypted secrets and configuration manager for software teams. Developers use it to store and distribute API keys, database credentials, and other application config, replacing ad-hoc methods like shared spreadsheets, hardcoded values, and manual environment variable management. Because encryption and decryption happen on the client, EnvKey itself never has access to the secrets it stores.

ErudiFi builds student lending platforms for higher-education borrowers in Southeast Asia, operating as Bukas in the Philippines and Danacita in Indonesia. It partners directly with colleges and universities to offer tuition installment plans and degree-program loans, replacing out-of-pocket lump-sum payments and informal credit arrangements. Students also build a formal credit history through repayment, reaching a segment that traditional banks leave unserved.

Evolve (makers of Podcast App & Rest AI) builds a podcast player for everyday listeners who find it hard to navigate tens of millions of available shows. The app uses machine learning to assemble personalized playlists across podcasts, audiobooks, and meditations, replacing manual browsing and generic recommendations. It targets curious, time-constrained people looking to turn commutes and routine tasks into time spent learning, staying informed, or being entertained.

Evry Health builds and sells health insurance directly to mid-sized employers in Texas, replacing traditional carrier plans with its own coverage. Members get a dedicated care team of nurses, nutritionists, and doctors, plus 24/7 virtual physician access, through a mobile-first platform. The product targets the benefits decision that HR and finance leaders at mid-market companies make when renewing group health coverage.

FidoCure® brings precision oncology to veterinary medicine, giving veterinarians a genomic testing and targeted therapy platform for dogs diagnosed with cancer. It sequences a tumor to identify cancer-driving mutations, then recommends personalized therapeutic options, replacing the default of standard chemotherapy or radiation with treatments matched to each dog's genetic profile.

Flinto builds a mobile digital wallet for consumers in Mexico, letting them send money to friends, pay merchants, and settle bills from their phone without needing a bank account. It targets the unbanked and underbanked population, replacing cash transactions and the need for traditional financial infrastructure.

Fondo handles bookkeeping, corporate tax filings, and R&D tax credit claims for startups, replacing the work founders would otherwise hand to a traditional accountant or do themselves. A CPA-led team backed by AI closes the books, files Delaware franchise tax and federal and state income taxes, and identifies credits that return cash from the IRS. The target customer is a scaling tech startup that wants accounting entirely off its plate.

Gainful sells personalized performance nutrition products, including protein, hydration, pre-workout, and supplement boosts, directly to active consumers. Each customer receives formulations matched to their individual fitness goals, paired with one-on-one support from a registered dietitian. The product replaces generic, off-the-shelf sports nutrition with a tailored regimen built around the person.

Glimpse K12 builds analytics software for school districts that tracks spending and programs against student achievement data. District administrators use it to evaluate which activities and expenditures actually move student outcomes, replacing manual, disconnected attempts to measure education return on investment. The product gives district leaders a clear picture of where time and money are and are not working.

Glowing.io builds an AI-powered messaging platform for hospitality brands, consolidating guest conversations across SMS, WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, Facebook Messenger, and other channels into a single dashboard with real-time two-way translation across 100-plus languages. It targets luxury hotels and global hospitality operators whose front-line teams juggle disconnected messaging apps and language barriers. The platform automates scheduled touchpoints across the guest journey and routes inbound messages to the right team, replacing manual multi-platform coordination and ad hoc translation.

Groww gives retail investors in India a single platform to buy stocks, ETFs, futures and options, IPOs, and direct mutual funds, including SIP-based investing. It serves as both a registered stockbroker and a mutual fund distributor, replacing fragmented bank portals, traditional brokers, and paper-based fund applications with a mobile-first interface.

Haiku builds collaboration tools for software teams, spanning design, code, branding, and marketing. Its products include an animator that bridges design and code, a cross-platform design token system called Diez, and an optimizer for marketing and sales. Together they replace fragmented handoff workflows between designers, engineers, and marketers.

Helloverify runs an AI-powered background verification platform for enterprises, governments, and immigration and licensing authorities. It checks identity, criminal records, education, employment history, and credit standing against primary sources, replacing manual document collection and slow turnaround with automated verification across more than 120 countries. The platform covers the full workflow from order intake and status tracking through to auditable final reports, serving corporate hiring teams and public-sector regulators alike.

Hexel builds a platform that lets communities create their own cryptocurrencies. It targets community organizers, creators, and brands who want a native digital token without building blockchain infrastructure from scratch. The product replaces custom token development and the technical overhead that typically comes with launching a community currency.

Hunter2 trains engineering teams to write more secure software through hands-on labs built around real-world web application vulnerabilities. Developers practice both exploiting and patching flaws in codebases that match their own tech stack, replacing passive security awareness training with active, skill-building exercises.

Iambiq Technologies builds software that reads and processes large volumes of text-based data for organizations, replacing the manual review work previously done by human staff. The product targets B2B customers whose operations depend on extracting meaning or structure from high volumes of written documents.

Jasper.ai builds an AI platform for marketing teams, giving them purpose-built agents and structured content pipelines to plan, produce, and optimize content at scale. It replaces manual copywriting, brand-consistency reviews, and fragmented campaign workflows by embedding brand voice, style rules, and product context directly into the generation process. The platform also covers generative image creation and AI search optimization, making it a full-stack content production layer for B2B marketers.

Jido Maps builds computer vision models for teams that have visual or scanned data they need software to interpret at scale. It takes a customer's existing image data, regardless of whether the team has machine learning expertise in-house, and delivers a deployed model, replacing the need for internal ML development cycles. Use cases span security camera monitoring, automated data entry, web-scraped image interpretation, augmented reality, and mobile product scanning.

Key Values helps software developers find engineering teams whose working culture and priorities match their own. Developers browse and filter teams by specific values, replacing the trial-and-error of cold applications and generic job boards. The product targets the mismatch between what engineers want from a workplace and what traditional recruiting surfaces.

Lambda Tea builds self-serve bubble tea dispensers that vend a 16-oz cup of boba in under 20 seconds. The machines target any venue where boba can be placed on-demand, replacing staffed preparation and third-party late-night delivery orders. The hardware is designed to cut cost and wait time without sacrificing drink quality.

Lawyaw builds document automation software for law firms, replacing manual drafting and paper-based workflows with programmable, digitized document pipelines. The platform targets the consumer legal services market, letting firms produce and manage legal documents faster and at lower cost. It serves as vertical SaaS infrastructure for practices looking to move core document work off paper and out of word processors.

Let's Do This builds a marketplace for mass participation sports events, connecting recreational athletes with races, runs, cycling sportives, and similar organised events. It replaces the fragmented process of hunting across individual event websites and race directories to find and book a suitable event. Participants browse, compare, and sign up for events in one place.

Look After My Bills automatically switches UK households to the best available energy tariff on a recurring basis, removing the manual effort of comparing and changing energy suppliers. The service targets everyday consumers who would otherwise overpay by staying on a default or expired deal year after year.

Lucy Goods, Inc makes tobacco-free nicotine products, including pouches, chewing gum, and a burstable-capsule pouch called Breakers, aimed at adult smokers looking to move away from cigarettes and other high-harm tobacco products. The products are designed to be more appealing in flavor, format, and packaging than traditional nicotine replacement options such as pharmaceutical-style gum or vapes. The company replaces both combustible tobacco and existing nicotine replacement therapies with consumer-grade alternatives built around harm reduction.

LUS Brands sells a simplified three-step hair care system for consumers with naturally curly, wavy, and kinky-coily hair. The products are water-activated and formulated by curl type, replacing the trial-and-error of piecing together generic styling routines. The brand targets people who want to work with their natural texture rather than chemically alter or suppress it.

Macromoltek builds a computational platform that designs therapeutic antibodies for biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Using deep learning and structural modeling, it generates antibody candidates against targets that conventional wet-lab discovery methods cannot access, replacing experimental trial-and-error cycles with in silico design. Clients engage Macromoltek across early research through clinical development stages.

Mayhem builds community event infrastructure for gamers, combining automatic game tracking, real-time leaderboards, and global chat into a single platform. It replaces manual score-keeping and fragmented group coordination so gaming communities can run organized events without outside tooling. Niantic acquired Mayhem in 2020.

Medumo automates patient instructions for hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, and medical practices. Its CareTours platform delivers precisely timed text and email messages that guide patients through procedures step by step, replacing the manual calls and printed materials that staff would otherwise manage. The result is higher procedural completion rates, reduced administrative burden on care teams, and fewer lost referrals.

Meitre builds reservation and guest management software for top-tier restaurants in Latin America. It handles online bookings, table management, and revenue tracking, replacing manual reservation books and disconnected front-of-house workflows. Restaurant operators use it to manage the full guest lifecycle from first booking to visit history.

Memora Health builds an AI platform that digitizes and automates care workflows for health systems, payors, and digital health organizations. It ingests existing clinical workflows, converts them into structured patient messaging journeys across a care episode, and handles routine follow-up tasks directly in the EMR. The platform replaces manual care coordination work, reducing the volume of notifications care teams must handle and guiding patients through post-visit and chronic care programs without additional staff effort.

Meson builds a cross-chain stablecoin swap protocol that lets users and applications move stablecoins across more than 60 blockchains and Layer 2 rollups without slippage and at low cost. It replaces the slow, expensive, and slippage-prone bridging routes that crypto users rely on today. Beyond stablecoin swaps, the protocol connects centralized exchange withdrawals, fiat on-ramps, and real-world asset flows into a single cross-chain layer.

Mighty Buildings manufactures 3D-printed wall systems and prefabricated housing panels for residential and commercial construction, replacing conventional framing and exterior envelope trades. Using a proprietary printable material lighter than concrete with high thermal insulation, the company automates up to 80% of production in its factory. Units ship ready to assemble, cutting on-site crew requirements and construction time while targeting a near-zero-waste, carbon-neutral production process.

Mind Emulation Foundation funds and conducts scientific research toward digitally emulating the human mind by mapping the brain's connectome, the full network of neural connections. The target is biological death: the goal is to preserve personal identity beyond the failure of the body by recreating the connectome in a digital substrate. The work sits at the intersection of connectomics and neuroscience, advancing the scanning and mapping techniques required to replicate a complete human brain at nanometer resolution.

miru builds an augmented reality app that lets shoppers place furniture from any retailer's website into a live view of their own home before buying. A computer vision pipeline converts product listings into AR-ready models, replacing the guesswork of imagining how a piece will fit or look in an actual space.

Modern Health sells a mental health benefits platform to employers, giving their workforce access to clinically validated assessments, self-guided tools, behavioral health coaches, and licensed therapists. It covers a spectrum of needs, from everyday stress management to crisis care, across a global member base. The platform replaces fragmented employee assistance programs and ad-hoc therapy referrals with a single, centrally managed system.

Mojo builds a mobile app that lets small businesses and independent content creators produce animated social media videos. Users work from a library of templates, text effects, and animations to turn raw ideas into polished short-form content, replacing the need for a designer or desktop editing software.

Naborly builds tenant screening and rent protection tools for landlords, property managers, and realtors. Its platform runs credit, income, background, and eviction checks, and uses AI to detect fraud in income documents, replacing manual reference calls and paper-based vetting. Landlords can also protect rental income against unpaid rent, damage, and eviction costs through a rent guarantee product.

Necto packages everything a new internet service provider needs to launch and operate, targeting entrepreneurs who want to start a local ISP. On the consumer side, Necto runs its own neighborhood broadband service, delivering fixed residential internet and replacing incumbent cable and telecom carriers as the household's provider.

Nectome develops whole-body human preservation technology targeting people at the end of life. The process preserves the brain, including its neurons and synaptic connections, to a quality sufficient for tracing the full connectome, replacing the absence of any option beyond standard end-of-life care. The long-term goal is a preserved state detailed enough to make future revival theoretically possible.

NewCraft builds a unified API that connects software products to HR and payroll platforms such as Workday, ADP, and Paylocity. Developers get standardized access to employee data across those systems through a single integration, replacing the years of custom engineering and business development that direct integrations have historically required. The product includes test environments, documentation, and security tooling to support a complete build experience.

Newfront builds a technology-native insurance brokerage serving businesses across commercial insurance and employee benefits. Clients use Newfront's platform to manage business insurance policies and total rewards programs, replacing the manual, opaque processes of traditional brokers with real-time data and analytics. The company serves a broad range of corporate clients, from venture-backed startups to large public companies, across industries including technology, fintech, and life sciences.

NEXGENT trains career changers with no prior tech experience for entry-level networking and cybersecurity roles, replacing the traditional college degree path with a structured program that delivers industry certifications and hands-on skills in four to six months. Curriculum draws on instructors with backgrounds at Cisco, Arista, and the U.S. Air Force. Students receive one-on-one mentorship, skills assessments, and career guidance throughout.

Nutrigene delivers personalized liquid supplements to individual consumers based on their health goals and a metabolic assessment. The product replaces generic, off-the-shelf pill-based vitamins with custom liquid formulations matched to each person's nutritional needs. It targets consumers looking to address specific health goals rather than buying one-size-fits-all supplements.

Nuvocargo builds an AI-powered freight and customs platform for shippers moving truckload cargo between the United States and Mexico. Its agentic platform, Nuvo AI, automates the end-to-end load lifecycle, covering freight procurement, customs clearance, and insurance, replacing the fragmented mix of brokers, customs agents, and manual coordination that cross-border shippers otherwise manage themselves.

Observant AI builds a driver monitoring system for commercial fleets that runs on iPhones. It applies machine learning to the iPhone's depth sensors to detect unsafe driving behaviors in real time, replacing dedicated hardware cameras and manual review. Fleet operators use it to reduce accidents before they happen.

Observe.AI builds a contact center AI platform that handles customer support interactions end-to-end and coaches live agents in real time. It transcribes and analyzes every call, replacing manual quality assurance sampling and ad hoc coaching with automated, full-coverage review. Contact centers in banking, insurance, healthcare, and travel use it to run both customer-facing voice and chat resolution and internal performance workflows from a single platform.

onederful builds an API that connects dental software platforms to dental insurance carriers, covering eligibility verification and claim submissions. Dental practices and the platforms serving them use it to check patient coverage and submit claims programmatically, replacing manual calls and portal lookups across hundreds of payers.

Openland builds a messaging platform centered on community, where anyone can start and grow group chat communities at no cost. It targets people seeking genuine connection, peer learning, and open self-expression, replacing fragmented group chats on general-purpose messengers with a dedicated home for organized, topic-driven communities.

OpenSea operates a non-custodial marketplace where buyers and sellers trade digital assets, tokens, and physical assets across major blockchains. It serves the full range of onchain participants, from individual collectors to active traders, replacing fragmented, custodial exchange processes with a single destination. The platform covers NFTs, fungible tokens, and real-world assets under one interface.

Orangewood Labs builds AI-powered collaborative robotic arms designed for small manufacturers. The robots accept natural-language instructions, replacing manual programming expertise, and handle tasks such as bin picking, visual inspection, powder coating, and spray painting. The product targets small businesses that cannot afford traditional industrial automation or the labor costs tied to repetitive, hazardous, or precision-heavy factory work.

OSIMple builds inspection workflow software that replaces paper-based data collection with tablet-based forms and auto-generated reports. Bridge and home inspectors use it to cut the time spent on manual data entry during and after each inspection. The product started in structural bridge inspection and has since expanded to residential home inspection.

OurMenu builds a QR-code-based mobile ordering system for restaurants. Diners scan a code at the table, browse the menu, place an order, and pay, all without downloading an app or flagging down a server. The product replaces the traditional waiter-order workflow and gives restaurants aggregated menu and ordering data in return.

Ovipost builds automated insect farms that convert low-cost agricultural byproducts into protein-dense insects. The company targets the animal feed market, where insects offer amino acid profiles and digestibility that can replace fishmeal and other expensive protein inputs. Its automation technology addresses the core production bottleneck that keeps insect farming from scaling to commodity feed volumes.

Pagedraw converts UI mockups into production-ready React component code, letting front-end developers skip manual CSS and HTML markup. Designers draw or import mockups from Sketch or Figma, and the tool outputs semantic, dependency-free code that drops directly into an existing React codebase. It replaces the hand-translation work between design files and coded components.

Pelago builds a virtual behavioral health clinic for employers, covering substance use disorders, mental health, and behavioral addictions such as gambling. Members get AI-routed, clinician-backed care combining cognitive behavioral therapy and medication-assisted treatment, replacing fragmented or inaccessible in-person programs. An internal clinical record called Atlas carries context across every interaction to match each member to the right level of care.

Persephone Biosciences develops live biotherapeutic products targeting the gut microbiome, with a current focus on infant and toddler synbiotics. Its probiotic-prebiotic supplements replenish Bifidobacterium strains that are absent in the majority of babies today, replacing the guesswork of generic infant probiotics with clinically studied, strain-specific formulations validated in a randomized controlled trial.

Players' Lounge lets video game players wager real money on their own match performance across titles like Warzone, Madden, Apex Legends, and Fortnite. Gamers set or accept challenge bets tied to specific in-game outcomes, such as kill counts or match wins, replacing informal skill-based competition with a structured, cash-stakes format. The platform also lets users stake money on other players' matches and trade on sports game outcomes.

Plexus builds high-performance gloves for virtual and augmented reality. The gloves give consumers and developers precise hand-tracking and tactile input in immersive environments, replacing bulky controllers or bare-hand workarounds that lack physical feedback.

Point API builds a text-reuse tool for professionals who repeatedly send the same emails, links, images, and snippets. Users store any frequently sent content once and retrieve it instantly through a Chrome extension, eliminating the need to retype or hunt down recurring messages, templates, or assets.

Precious builds a mobile and web app that helps parents organize and present photos of their children growing up. The app uses AI to automatically select the best shots from a phone's camera roll and assembles them into timelapse videos, monthly albums, and decorated photo stories. It replaces the manual work of sorting, editing, and curating family photos.

Promise builds payment and benefits infrastructure for government agencies and utilities, replacing manual, fragmented billing and relief systems. Its AI-powered platform handles flexible payment plans, benefits distribution, income verification, and fraud detection, letting agencies recover more revenue and get relief funds to residents faster. The work it displaces includes legacy payment portals, paper-based eligibility processes, and after-the-fact auditing.

Proven Group builds personalized skincare products for direct-to-consumer shoppers. A quiz collects data on a customer's skin type, genetics, lifestyle, and environment, which feeds into a proprietary database called the Skin Genome Project to generate individualized formulations. The product replaces off-the-shelf skincare routines with formulas built around a specific person's profile.

Psylaris builds a VR platform for mental healthcare providers, delivering evidence-based virtual reality sessions that run both inside therapy appointments and independently at home between sessions. Therapists monitor client progress and control session pacing through a dashboard, while clients practice exposure therapy, EMDR, relaxation, and stress reduction without requiring a clinician to be present for every interaction. The platform reduces the hands-on time therapists must spend on exercises that structured digital tools can handle, letting clinicians concentrate on work that requires direct human judgment.

Pulse builds a crowdsourced knowledge marketplace connecting enterprise technology vendors with C-suite IT executives. Executives share peer insights and evaluate vendors on the platform, replacing the role that traditional analyst firms play in enterprise buying decisions. Vendors use Pulse to inform their strategy, content, and marketing with direct input from the buyers they are trying to reach.

Quantstamp provides security auditing and related services to Web3 projects, covering smart contract audits, economic exploit analysis, penetration testing, operational security, and incident response. Its clients are blockchain protocols and decentralized applications that need third-party verification before and after launch. The work it replaces is in-house security review by teams that lack deep blockchain-specific expertise.

Qulture.Rocks builds people management software for startups and scaleups, covering performance reviews, OKR tracking, engagement surveys, 1:1s, ongoing feedback, and peer recognition. It replaces ad hoc spreadsheets and disconnected HR tools with a single platform. The company also helps customers design the underlying processes, which is particularly useful for teams running these programs for the first time.

Replit builds a browser-based platform that turns natural-language prompts into deployed apps, websites, dashboards, and prototypes. It serves founders, product managers, designers, and engineers who need to ship software without writing code by hand. The platform replaces traditional development environments, frontend frameworks, and manual deployment workflows in a single collaborative workspace.

Reverie Labs develops brain-penetrant cancer therapies using machine learning to drive small-molecule drug discovery. The company applies AI to design and optimize compounds that can cross the blood-brain barrier, targeting cancers that are difficult to treat with conventional drugs. This replaces the slower, largely manual medicinal chemistry iteration that traditional drug discovery relies on.

Rhythmm builds a curated social reading app that surfaces expert conversations and insights for followers. Channels are controlled by a creator who invites contributors, keeping participation closed while anyone can read along, replacing noisy open chat groups like those on Telegram with a structured, follow-only format.

Runa builds cloud payroll and HR software for companies operating in Latin America. The platform handles payroll processing, time tracking, performance management, and reporting in a single system, replacing the mix of manual processes and fragmented tools that regional businesses have historically relied on.

SafetyWing builds insurance and financial protection products for digital nomads and remote workers, replacing the coverage gaps left by national welfare systems that don't travel with people. Its two core products are Nomad Insurance, a global medical and travel plan for individuals, and Remote Health, a group health insurance policy covering distributed teams and contractors across more than 175 countries.

Secured builds a membership platform for collectors of sneakers, NFTs, sports cards, and similar assets, giving them market intelligence and community access in one place. It targets enthusiasts who currently piece together advice from scattered forums, resale trackers, and social groups. The membership replaces that fragmented research and networking with a single dedicated resource.

Sepsis Scout builds a wearable and AI system that monitors patients for early signs of sepsis in outpatient and home settings. The platform continuously tracks physiological signals and flags deterioration before it becomes life-threatening, replacing the reactive, in-hospital monitoring that would otherwise catch sepsis only after a patient has already been admitted. The company was formerly known as Patchd Medical and has since been acquired by Cytovale.

SharpestMinds connects aspiring data scientists with senior AI engineers for one-on-one mentorship, replacing the gap left by traditional education with hands-on, job-focused guidance. Mentors drawn from top industry teams coach candidates through the skills and portfolio work needed to get hired. The model defers all cost to the mentee until employment, at which point the mentor receives a share of the first year's salary.

Shogun builds ecommerce storefront tooling for direct-to-consumer brands on Shopify and BigCommerce. Its Page Builder lets merchandising and design teams create and launch product and campaign pages without writing code, while its A/B testing and personalization tools let conversion rate specialists test page elements and tailor content to individual visitors. The platform replaces reliance on developer queues for page edits and manual, one-size-fits-all landing pages.

Shone builds autonomy technology for cargo ships, retrofitting existing vessels rather than requiring new hardware. The system targets commercial maritime operators, replacing the manual navigation and watchkeeping work that crews perform on ocean-going freight routes.

Simetrik builds a no-code financial control platform for finops and accounting teams at banks, payment processors, marketplaces, and similar financial institutions. It automates reconciliation, accounting operations, and regulatory reporting, replacing the manual spreadsheet work and custom scripts finance teams use to track cash flows, fees, chargebacks, and ledger entries. The platform spans the full financial operations cycle, from transaction matching to compliance reporting.

Sixfold Bioscience builds patented drug delivery systems for RNA therapeutics, including siRNAs for gene silencing and mRNAs for gene expression. Its Mergo platform uses AI to engineer delivery vehicles, replacing conventional formulation approaches that struggle to get RNA into target cells reliably. Pharmaceutical and biotech developers working on RNA-based medicines are the intended customers.

Sketchbox builds a no-code platform for creating, deploying, and updating VR training simulations, targeting large enterprises and government organizations. It replaces instructor-led, on-site training by letting teams build scenario-based modules with built-in student analytics, all running on standalone VR headsets without a PC or laptop. Customers use it to cut training time, reduce travel costs, and scale programs that would otherwise be bottlenecked by physical facilities and instructors.

Skip operates a shared electric scooter fleet for urban last-mile transportation. Riders use the scooters to cover short distances that fall between transit stops and their destinations. Skip works directly with cities to run permitted, community-aligned fleets and pairs rentals with rider safety education and support.

Slite builds an AI-powered knowledge base for B2B teams, letting employees ask plain-language questions to retrieve company information instead of hunting through folders or outdated documents. It replaces manual wiki maintenance and scattered internal documentation by centralizing company knowledge and surfacing answers on demand. The target customer is the modern team that loses time keeping internal docs current and findable.

Snackpass builds a commerce and creator-marketing platform for restaurants. On the commerce side, it gives restaurants a point-of-sale, mobile ordering, and a loyalty program that lets customers collect points and send gifts to friends. On the marketing side, it connects local restaurants with vetted content creators who post about the places they visit, replacing traditional paid advertising and manual influencer outreach.

Sourcify connects ecommerce brands and large enterprises to manufacturing partners across Asia and other global regions, replacing the guesswork of factory directories with on-the-ground teams who manage relationships, quality, and production. Where tools and lists stop at a factory name, Sourcify handles communication, quality oversight, and escalation through local staff in 17 countries. Clients get an outsourced sourcing function rather than a self-serve search tool.

Spellbrush builds anime games and generative AI tools for anime art, operating as the studio behind niji・journey and Waifu Labs. Its AI products let users create anime-style images and portraits, replacing manual illustration work. On the games side, titles like Arrowmancer pair original gameplay with anime visuals produced with in-house generative AI.

Sqreen builds an application security platform for enterprise engineering and security teams. It monitors in-app execution in real time to protect, observe, and test applications, APIs, and microservices, replacing signature-based tools that miss novel threats and require tuning outside the codebase.

Squad builds a mobile app that adds screen sharing to video calls, letting friends watch and interact with any app together in real time. It targets consumer social use cases where groups want a shared experience across distance. The product replaces the workaround of narrating or casting a screen separately while on a voice or video call.

SRTX develops advanced textile materials and supporting software, with its flagship product Sheertex being a hosiery line knit from an ultra-high-strength polymer. The product targets consumers who buy conventional pantyhose, replacing garments that are prone to runs and early disposal with a significantly more durable alternative. Beyond hosiery, SRTX applies its materials science platform across broader textile manufacturing.

Station builds a unified workspace hub for teams, aggregating apps, documents, notes, and messages into a single browser-based interface. It replaces the constant tab-switching and manual searching that knowledge workers do across disconnected SaaS tools by surfacing relevant information automatically as context demands it.

Storyline builds a no-code builder for Alexa voice applications, aimed at non-technical users who want to create and publish voice apps without writing code or configuring servers. It replaces the need for developer involvement by offering a visual mind-map interface and pre-built templates. The target user is a business or creator who would otherwise depend on an engineer to ship an Alexa skill.

Substack gives independent writers a platform to publish newsletters, build a subscriber base, and collect paid subscriptions directly from readers. It replaces the need for a media employer or third-party publishing infrastructure by handling distribution, payments, and community tools in one place. Writers retain ownership of their content, mailing list, and subscriber relationships.

Super builds a social commerce platform for Indonesia that turns community leaders into local retailers selling daily essentials to their neighbors. Community leaders source products through the Super app, which connects them to wholesale pricing and a last-mile logistics network built for smaller cities and rural areas. The model replaces traditional wholesale middlemen and informal supply chains that underserve communities outside major urban centers.

Supermedium builds a virtual reality environment for consuming media, including books, comics, video, and social feeds, in a comfortable, large-screen format that works while lying down. It replaces the physical screen with a portable, immersive alternative for everyday digital tasks. The company has since pivoted toward AI-assisted 3D content creation, offering generative AI workflows built on A-Frame for producing 3D content.

Swayable builds a creative pre-testing platform that runs automated randomized controlled trials to measure how ads, content, and messaging shift consumer opinion before campaigns go live. Brands, advocacy groups, and political campaigns use it to determine which creative drives attitude and behavior change across tens of thousands of verified human respondents. It replaces slower, less rigorous ad-testing methods with causal AI experiments that deliver statistically grounded impact scores.

Swipehouse built a social network for TikTok creators, connecting them with brand deal opportunities and other creators for collaborations. It served TikTok influencers looking to monetize their audience and find collab partners, replacing manual outreach and fragmented discovery. Swipehouse was acquired by Hamster Garage in 2021.

Tarjimly connects refugees and immigrants with interpreters and document translators across 250+ languages, available via app, web, or hotline. Businesses, NGOs, and community organizations use the service in place of traditional language agencies, getting an interpreter on-call in under 30 seconds. A volunteer network and paid tiers cross-subsidize free and low-cost access for displaced people and the organizations serving them.

tEQuitable gives employees a confidential channel, combining a private digital platform with calls to trained professionals, to surface and work through bias, discrimination, and harassment without fear of retribution. On the employer side, it aggregates that activity into behavioral trend data and systemic risk insights, replacing the work that traditional HR investigations or outside counsel would otherwise handle reactively. The model adapts the organizational ombuds practice for companies that want to catch workplace culture problems before they escalate into litigation.

Tilt (f.k.a. Delphia) builds a custom indexing platform that turns a written prompt, theme, or investment thesis into a rules-based, backtestable stock strategy tied to public companies. Individual investors and financial advisors use it to construct and follow trend-driven portfolios, replacing the manual work of screening equities and waiting for a relevant ETF to exist. Advisors also apply it to tailor client portfolios around tax considerations and investment preferences.

Tingles builds a mobile app for sleep and relaxation, focused on ASMR video content. It serves consumers who struggle to relax or fall asleep, replacing scattered YouTube searches with a curated library of thousands of videos from top ASMR creators and sleep professionals. The app is available free on iOS and Android.

Tipe builds an open-source, headless CMS for Jamstack and Next.js apps. Developers model content schemas in code, then non-technical teammates can edit, preview, and collect feedback on changes before publishing, replacing ad-hoc code deploys and developer bottlenecks for routine content updates.

Torch builds a leadership coaching platform for mid-to-large employers, pairing managers and high performers with ICF-credentialed coaches drawn from a vetted network of industry leaders and psychologists. It replaces ad-hoc, untracked development efforts with a structured, measurable program that companies can deploy across any layer of the organization. The platform handles matching, delivery, and outcome tracking, giving HR and L&D teams visibility into employee growth at scale.

Tradewind BioScience develops antibody therapeutics for aggressive metastatic cancers. Its lead program targets ovarian cancer with a single antibody designed to attack primary tumor cells directly while also activating the immune system's own anti-cancer response. The company pairs its drug development with companion diagnostics to identify which patients stand to benefit most from each treatment.

Treasury Prime builds an embedded banking network and API platform connecting fintechs with a pool of partner banks, replacing the fragile one-to-one bank-fintech relationship with a diversified, multi-bank architecture. Fintechs use it to launch and scale financial products, including payments, money transfer, and deposit accounts, while banks use it to manage and oversee fintech programs on their own terms. The platform handles ledgering, payments, compliance infrastructure, and bank partnerships in a single operating layer.

Tributi builds a tax-filing platform for individual taxpayers in Latin America, starting with Colombia. Users complete their income tax return through a guided app or hand the work to a Tributi tax expert. Beyond filing, Tributi surfaces personalized financial products to users based on the tax and financial data it collects in the process.

Universe builds a no-code website builder for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, letting individuals and small businesses create storefronts, portfolios, and event pages through a drag-and-drop grid editor. It replaces the need for a developer or desktop-first tools by putting full site construction directly on a mobile device. Users can publish, sell products, and track traffic without writing a line of code.

Vanta builds a compliance automation platform for B2B companies that need to achieve and maintain certifications like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI, and GDPR. It connects to over 400 tools to collect audit evidence automatically, runs continuous security tests, and manages risk, vendor reviews, and security questionnaires in one place. The product replaces the manual, spreadsheet-driven work that security and GRC teams do to prepare for audits and respond to customer trust requests.

Vathys builds software that accelerates deep learning workloads, targeting teams that train and run machine learning models. The company shifted from custom hardware to a software approach, replacing the need for specialized accelerator chips to achieve faster model execution.

Vena Medical builds miniaturized endoscopic cameras for neurovascular surgery, giving physicians direct visual access inside blood vessels during procedures. Its flagship device, the MicroAngioscope, replaces indirect imaging methods that surgeons currently rely on to navigate and treat conditions in the brain's vasculature. The technology targets neuro-interventional specialists performing minimally invasive intracranial procedures.

Veriff builds an identity verification platform that lets businesses confirm who their users are at onboarding, authentication, and re-verification. Its decision engine checks faces, documents, and behavioral signals against a database of government-issued IDs from over 190 countries, replacing manual review queues and patchwork compliance checks. Fintech, crypto, mobility, and marketplace companies use it to meet KYC requirements and reduce fraud without slowing down user conversion.

Viaopt builds a shared-load platform for corporate trucking fleets, letting multiple companies pool freight onto the same trucks to reduce empty miles and cut transport costs. It targets B2B shippers and fleet operators in the logistics industry, replacing individually contracted, underutilized truck runs with coordinated, multi-party route sharing.

Voicery builds a deep neural network text-to-speech platform that generates voices close enough to human speech to replace traditional voice actors. Media producers use it to produce audiobooks, podcasts, television dubs, and voice-overs without recording sessions. The product targets new media applications where manual voice recording is slow or cost-prohibitive.

Volley builds voice-controlled games and entertainment for Amazon Alexa smart speakers, Roku, Fire TV, and major smart TV platforms. Its catalog includes licensed titles such as Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire alongside originals like Song Quiz, replacing the need for a controller, remote, or screen tap to play casual games at home.

Worklytics builds workplace analytics software for IT, HR, and leadership teams. It pulls usage data from tools like Google Workspace, Slack, and enterprise AI subscriptions to measure productivity, collaboration patterns, and AI return on investment, replacing manual surveys and gut-feel renewal decisions. The product anonymizes employee data and delivers spend tracking, ROI measurement, and benchmarks so teams can make defensible budget calls before renewal cycles.

YouTeam builds a marketplace that connects startups with vetted offshore engineers available for full-time contracts, sourced outside public freelance platforms and job boards. It serves companies that cannot fill technical roles through conventional hiring channels, replacing the manual work of sourcing, screening, and vetting remote engineering candidates. YouTeam has since been acquired by Toptal.

ZBiotics engineers probiotic bacteria to perform specific metabolic tasks inside the human body. Its first product, Pre-Alcohol, is taken before drinking and breaks down acetaldehyde, the toxic alcohol byproduct that conventional probiotics leave unaddressed. A second product, Sugar-to-Fiber, uses the enzyme levansucrase to convert dietary sugar into fiber, replacing the need for a separate fiber supplement.

Zyper builds a machine learning platform that helps brands identify and mobilize their most engaged social followers, turning them into a coordinated community of advocates. It replaces paid influencer and blogger campaigns by activating real consumers who already follow the brand, generating peer-to-peer content at scale. The buyers are brand marketers seeking higher engagement and social conversion than traditional influencer spend delivers.