Josh Gray

Here's a new list of 36 fast-growing Y Combinator backed startups. 1) Redbird - AI-powered analytics platform 2) Hatchet - background task orchestration and visibility 3) Knowtex - AI note-taking & charge capture for doctors 4) Bree Technologies - cash advances in Canada 5) Maia - AI relationship app for couples 6) Versable - AI product description enhancement for auto parts 7) Landed - video-based fast hiring marketplace 8) Unriddle (YC S24) - research paper search and access platform 9) Stacksync (YC W24) - sync between CRMs and databases 10) Viva Labs (YC W22) - AI video creation platform 11) OpenLayer - platform for shipping airtight AI 12) Firecrawl - web data extraction for AI 13) LunaJoy Health - precision mental health care for women 14) Cashboard (YC S22) - analytics hub for finance teams 15) TrueBiz - instant background checks for businesses 16) Dots (YC S21) - developer-friendly payouts infrastructure 17) FlexDesk - office portfolio management platform 18) Response - end-to-end indirect spend control 19) Finni Health (YC W23) - platform for independent autism care providers 20) Resolve - VR simulations for operations and maintenance teams 21) Kontigo (YC S24) - USDC neobank for latinos 22) Recover - online addiction treatment with government funding 23) Truss - construction banking platform 24) WeWeb - no-code frontend builder with backend integration 25) Stable - virtual business mailbox service 26) Rally UXR - user research CRM 27) Strive - online coding school for kids 28) Courtyard.io - collectibles investment platform 29) Devyce - global business mobile network 30) Bot MD - AI clinical assistant for doctors 31) Tiptap - collaborative apps developer toolkit 32) SPATE - market trends prediction platform 33) Activeloop - database for AI 34) Rollstack - automated data-driven presentations platform 35) Quindar - satellite operations monitoring platform 36) SigNoz - open source DataDog alternative #YCombinator #StartupGrowth #TechStartups #ScalingUp #InnovativeStartups #YCAlumni #StartupSuccess #GrowthHacking #EarlyStageStartups #FastGrowingCompanies #StartupEcosystem #FutureOfTech

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MyFO raises $3.5M in Seed Funding! MyFO, a Vancouver-based platform for family offices and wealth management professionals, has raised $3.5M in seed funding led by Rhino Ventures. With this new investment, MyFO plans to scale operations, enhance its platform, and grow its team. Led by Simrang Kang and Jonathan Ricci, MyFO is integrated with over 20,000 financial institutions across North America. The platform consolidates data, documents, and stakeholder management, empowering wealth managers to make better decisions for discerning clients. With a focus on privacy and data security, MyFO is addressing one of the biggest pain points for family offices: How can wealth managers efficiently manage vast amounts of sensitive information while maintaining the highest levels of security? If MyFO cracks this challenge, they could set a new standard for privacy-first wealth management in the industry. Do you think privacy and data security will be the defining factors for the future of wealth management platforms? Baljeet Malhotra, Iulian Serban, Daniel Lozano Navas, Quinn Cavanagh Takintope Akinbiyi, Omar Sherif, Souleymane Traore Souleymane Traore Valentin Ky, Youri SARAFIAN, Ramon Sharif, Igor Nesmyanovich 𝐃𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐒𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐀 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 : 👉 https://lnkd.in/e8XyWxcQ #WealthManagement #Fintech #DataSecurity

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We’re beyond thrilled about this oversubscribed seed round! Our mission is to make family office management simple, streamlined, and stress-free. Exciting things are on the horizon! 🚀 Book a quick MyFO Demo: https://lnkd.in/g3sEe2pP #FamilyOffice #WealthSimplified #WealthManagment #FinTech #WealthManagment #MyFO

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Exciting news from Toronto's DMZ! DMZ Ventures just launched a $5M CAD fund to fuel early-stage startups, aiming to make 10 investments a year and bridge critical funding gaps. With a focus on pre-seed and seed-stage companies, this fund is set to back some serious winners! Want to know more? Dive into the details at #BetaKit! 👉 https://ow.ly/MSrR50SoHQp #Startups #Investment #TechNews #Innovation #DMZVentures

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Sidewalk Labs (Part of Google), another showcase of Canadian politicians bending over for a big US corp, with ZERO tangible results 💩 Roxana and I attended a "private investor demo" session in 2019. A block of wood was passed among the audience, supposedly the NEXT BIG BREAKTHROUGH in urban development! Demo concluded, by observing a piece of wood! Building blocks of future skyscrapers! The promise? With this, Google will build a "Smart City" for us, the peasants of Toronto, in Queens Quay 🏖️🏢 Sidewalk Labs' website now points to a newer Google scam, it reads: "Build Sustainably with Google Earth"! Bait and switch, but let enough time pass so no one remembers 🤢 https://lnkd.in/gd3B-a6m Guess now the investors and Ontario Government | Gouvernement de l’Ontario have shit loads of these wooden blocks, ready to shove up somewhere, to find a use for! All because the name "Bloomberg" sounds authoritative enough to our ears? Surely that's capital well spent, instead of investing in local talent! 🤔 Will Canada's tech ecosystem ever crawl out of Silicon Valley's shadow, and stand on its own? ⌚👀⛔

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I wrote Peak Teams after working with hundreds of VC-backed companies to figure out why some fail, and some succeed. The success factor is pretty simple: an operating system designed for VC-backed teams, which is why I designed Peak OS. #venturebacked #vcbacked #venturecapital #leadership #ceo #founder #operatingsystem #peakOS

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Founder Spotlight 🌟 Meet Juan Bello, co-founder of Porter Metrics, a company from the Techstars Boulder 2021 Cohort (cc: Andres Barreto, Malte Witt) Juan, originally from Colombia, is now based in Toronto.🇨🇦 Porter Metrics automates marketing reporting for small businesses and agencies. Think of it as a Zapier for data visualization – it sends your everyday apps’ data whenever you need it. No more copy-pasting or waiting for developers. Just streamlined, efficient reporting to get all your marketing KPIs together and make your team faster. Check out the comments for their website link. They’re doing some fantastic work! #TechstarsCanada #founders #givefirst #globalnetwork #startups #PorterMetrics #MarketingAutomation #DataVisualization

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🎙️ Assembling Your Dream Team: Building the Foundation for Startup Success 🚀 In this episode of Rocket Fuel, we explore a critical challenge for founders: hiring and retaining top talent. Michael Thibodeau sits down with Farial K, founder and CEO of HRXconnect, to unpack strategies for assembling your dream team and ensuring your early hires set your startup up for success. Farial brings over 10 years of expertise to share practical insights on: • Defining roles and creating alignment in your founding team. 🧩 • Hiring strategies for early-stage startups: specialists vs. generalists. 💼 • Attracting and retaining talent without competing on compensation alone. 🔑 • Avoiding common pitfalls in hiring, onboarding, and scaling your team. 🚀 Whether you’re hiring your first employee or scaling to 15+ people, this episode will give you the tools to build a resilient team while navigating the unique challenges of startup life. 🎧 Check out the full episode for actionable tips on turning your vision into reality. Links below! 👇 YOUTUBE: https://lnkd.in/gARiHR_E SPOTIFY: https://buff.ly/3WasDMW APPLE MUSIC: https://buff.ly/3WasDfU OTHER PLATFORMS: https://buff.ly/3WasCZo Let us know in the comments: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about hiring for your startup? 🤔 #RocketFuel #StartupLife #Hiring #Leadership #DreamTeam

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As a founder, have you ever been curious about this whole angel investing thing? This week's findfunding.vc spotlight is on an investor who's an expert in it you simply have to know: Matt Wilson, MBA from Allied Venture Partners. He: 🇨🇦 Is Calgary based 😇 Manages one of Canada's largest angle investor syndicates (now at 1,800+ members!) 🏒 Worked as a professional ice hockey referee, which he says shares remarkable similarities with investing Amongst founders, Matt Wilson, is known for bringing empathy and perspective as a former founder himself. Aside from financial support, his goal is to be the 'right' investor - one that aligns with a founder's vision, shares his network, and provides strategic insights when asked. ✉️ Make sure to pitch him, invest, scout, advise and more at https://linktr.ee/alliedvc For more, check out our funder spotlight card below along with Allied Venture Partners' profile on findfunding.vc (link in comments).

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Next one up, Glide! In an attempt to demystify some of the non-obvious elements we found when we first met the founders of our fastest growing portfolio companies at 186 Ventures, here is the third edition of the "idiosyncratic phenomenon". This highlight will be on Gautam A., Sameer Kapur, and Vishnu Chakroborty and their journey building Glide to bring world class, unparalleled enterprise grade infrastructure to the much overlooked market of credit unions and community banks-- some of the most important financial institutions across virtually every community in the US. Since we invested in their Winter, 2021 seed round, the company has built an incredible technology stack and has outpaced revenue projections by multiple orders of magnitude. This story is a *fantastic* reminder that it takes time to build incredible product and technology; the Glide story is a quintessential example of this startup proverb, in almost every regard. https://lnkd.in/e8b32CR2

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Building a startup is hard, especially if you’re trying to do it alone. That’s why it’s critical to find the right co-founder for the journey. In this episode of Startup School, YC's Harj Taggar explains why you need a co-founder, when to bring them on, where you can find one, and how to maintain the relationship. https://lnkd.in/gDFy6Tn3

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Founders! Check out this video from YC on how to find the right co-founders! #vc #yc #cofounders #startups #fundraising #teamwork

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Spent a wonderful week in Canada with family! Now back to business.. Here's your weekly AI update: 🔙 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐬: 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤 Week 51 | August 5 - August 11 The OpenAI Brain Drain Industry: 🚨OpenAI co-founder John Schulman leaves for Anthropic; President Greg Brockman is taking extended leave through the end of year. What's interesting is that three of their most technical co-founders (Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, Andrej Karpathy) have all left the company now. This then begs the question - is this a result of natural silicon-valley attrition, or is there something deeper going on here? And moreover, how will this impact the technical moat that OpenAI has built over the years? (https://lnkd.in/gztRKhwV) 🚨Google announced that new Gemini AI-powered features will be incorporated in a variety of home devices, such as Google Home and Nest (https://lnkd.in/gV2QacAQ?). It also announced a significant reduction in token cost of Gemini 1.5 Flash (https://lnkd.in/gbNe6yNU?) 🚨Figure releases Figure 02, it's newest humanoid robot. Figure has been actively testing robots with BMW at a manufacturing plant. Figure last raised $675M Series B in February 2024, valuing the company at $2.6 billion. (https://lnkd.in/gZnPSke4) 🚨Mark Zuckerberg said on Meta's Q2 earning call that to train Llama 4, the company will need 10x more compute than what was needed to train Llama 3. (https://lnkd.in/g5pEPrTw?) 🚨Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, renewing claims that the company is betraying its founding aims of benefiting the public good rather than pursuing profits. (https://lnkd.in/gAk5grU6) Financing and M&A: 🚨Groq raises $640m in Series D at a $2.8B valuation. The round was led by Blackrock Private Equity Partners with participation from other investors such as Neuberger Berman, Type One Ventures, Cisco, KDDI, and Samsung Catalyst Fund. (https://lnkd.in/gRtKQKvW?) 🚨Hugging Face acquires Seattle data storage startup Xethub. The HF team plans to integrate Xethub's backend storage technology, enabling developers to host more large models and datasets than currently possible. CEO Clem Delangue 🤗 confirmed this was the largest acquisition the company has made thus far. (https://lnkd.in/g8fJ-BjT) 🚨OpenAI is leading a $60m Series B funding round for Opal Camera, a maker of professional-grade webcams(https://lnkd.in/gMT9dkTG) 🚨ProRata.ai a company that has invented an attribution technology to properly compensate content owners, has raised a $25m Series A, led by Prime Movers Lab, Mayfield Fund and Revolution Ventures. (https://lnkd.in/gumjbWmj) R&D: 🚨Alibaba Group releases Qwen2-math, a SOTA model for math-specific tasks. (https://lnkd.in/g8Jh3M7T?) Other Interesting Resources: 🚨 Between May and August, more Humane AI Pins were returned than purchased (https://lnkd.in/gy56qpKm?). 😯

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💡 Why Every New Founder Needs to Hear This: Real Talk About the Highs and Lows of Entrepreneurship I had an amazing time on the latest episode of Collisions YYC with Jade Alberts and Tyler Chisholm! There’s something truly special about having real conversations with these two—discussing both the highs and the lows of being an entrepreneur. 🎢 In this episode, we dive deep into what it really takes to navigate the rollercoaster of startup life—how to manage those big wins, like landing a new client, and how to push through the tough moments, like missing payroll. We shared some hard-earned lessons on avoiding the common mistakes founders make, staying grounded through the chaos, and most importantly, knowing when to keep going and when it’s time to pivot. 🌱 For all the new founders out there: This journey isn’t easy, but it’s totally worth it. Prepare yourself for the challenges, and keep in mind that the highs and lows are all part of the adventure. 🚀 🎧 Tune in to hear these raw, real, and invaluable insights from Team Awesome: https://lnkd.in/e6CKrASG 💬 I’d love to hear your thoughts—what challenges have you faced as a founder? And how did you know when it was time to pivot or keep pushing through? #TeamAwesome #KeepBeingAwesome #Koridor #Entrepreneurship #FoundersJourney #CollisionsYYC #StartupLife #YYCFounders

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Antwerp-based startup Wobby, co-founded by Amra Dorjbayar and Nathan Tetroashvili, has raised $1.2M to enhance its AI-powered platform that streamlines access to complex data insights. Wobby offers a tool for knowledge workers that simplifies data aggregation and insight generation, making it particularly valuable for sectors where factual accuracy is essential. This $1.2 million Seed round included participation from Shaping Impact Group’s SI3 fund, as well as V-Ventures and imec.istart. Designed to improve efficiency for journalists, researchers, and analysts, Wobby’s platform reduces time spent on research and analysis by up to 75%. The funds will fuel Wobby’s expansion across Europe and its entry into the U.S. market. Iris Delafortry Quinten Verhelst Quinten Rosseel Maxim Van Walleghem Battulga Tseveldorj Marie-Paule Yamna Noemi G. Selim Vanbecelaere Pieter Oostlander

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Come join the Future of Frontier Technologies AI & blockchain event panel in Santa Monica! ✨ We are hosting an event on Friday, May 3rd during @Farcaster's FarCon weekend. Which will bring many blockchain experts & builders to LA! Emerging LA is collaborating with Lightspeed's Faction VC as a co-host, with Partner Timothy K. moderating a panel. The panel will discuss the questions that you are probably wondering about these technologies: • How can AI and blockchain work together? • How will these frontier technologies impact industries today? • What are the real-world use cases that these technologies solve? • What are the current dynamics between innovation and regulation? ​One on hand, AI offers the promise of abundance, democratizing content creation but will open the door to (deep)fakes and mistrust. On the other hand, ​Blockchain offers digital scarcity, authentication, and trust in a world inundated with digital replicas. --- The audience will be filled with founders, technical builders, investors, and industry executives in sectors that are most relevant to these trends: Gaming, media, content, finance, social. The early bird ticket sold out quickly last week and the general admission tickets expire on Wednesday, so don't miss out and grab yours soon! Partners for this event include Sunset Ventures and AI LA as well as others in town: • LA schools & clubs: Wharton Club of Southern California, Wharton Digital Assets Club, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Blockchain , and Blockchain at USC • CPG startups & Brands: Studio TBD, doorsa, Red Bull --- PROMO CODE DISCOUNTS! If you are a student or alum from Penn/Wharton, Harvard, USC, reach out and ask for code!! 😉 See you on Friday! (Link to event in comments) #ai #blockchain #farcon #web3 #LA

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The latest YC's flagship RFS comes with an interesting spin - their appetite to fund startups that build a future where human contributions remain essential and irreplaceable as a response to escalating fears around AI displacing human labor. The Request for Startups (RFS) is a Y Combinator tradition that's been going on for more than 10 years to present the ideas that YC partners want to see in spaces that they believe will be important in the coming decades. In 2018, there were 9 categories spanning from memory improvement to clean meat, anti-aging, and longevity. Then in February 2024, The YC updated the RFS for the first time in six years and expanded the categories to 20, including defense tech, ending cancer, space exploration, and climate solutions. Yesterday, the RFS for the 2025 winter batch was updated again and the focus is on: Government software Public safety technology Manufacture in the USA Stablecoins 2.0 LLMs for chip design Fintech 2.0 New space companies AI-aided engineering tools One million jobs 2.0 "Often the types of new careers that are created have better working conditions and are more helpful to humanity. In this new AI-driven world, these might be tools for more people to run their own local businesses, or be able to earn a living by providing services to other humans either online or offline." Dalton Caldwell In the wider VC space, this positions YC as a forward-looking player that not only encourages innovation but also safeguards human roles in the workforce.

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Benchmark - the fastest way to screen deals & analyze investment data. Each year, investment teams spend thousands of hours reviewing investment opportunities that die. Not only are those hours lost, but so is all of the valuable data that is tied to those opportunities. As a result, investment teams spend way too much time focusing on low-probability opportunities, digging through old files for comps, and redoing old analysis. Founded by Alec Dunn, Connor Janson, and Joshua Kerber: Benchmark allows investment teams to screen deals in minutes while automatically aggregating all of the valuable deal data for future analysis. With Benchmark, investors can focus on high-probability opportunities and build permanent institutional knowledge, saving them hundreds of hours per year and giving them a significant edge over the competition. Benchmark is backed by Y Combinator & Outsiders Fund https://lnkd.in/eTVKvhe7

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