Glad to have you on my Fast Facts track! Here, you’ll get quick, crisp insights compiled from various resources, showing you what sparks my curiosity. Today, it’s all about YC Summer 2024 Batch Demo Day.
Y Combinator’s Summer 2024 Demo Day just wrapped up, and these founders are turning heads! I’ve handpicked the ones that truly stood out. And trust me, you’ll want to stick around for the bonus picks at the end. Each one of these startups is an absolute game-changer.
No surprise here. AI continues to be at the core of innovation, shaping the future in extraordinary ways. Here are my top picks from TechCrunch’s lists curated for Day 1 and Day 2.
Let’s dive in!
They automate the detection of design errors in engineering projects and suggest solutions autonomously. Saving time, money, and, potentially, lives.
Entangl is automating engineering design. Starting with datacenter design, their AI agent automatically detects errors while engineering teams work. For each error detected, Entangl suggests a detailed step-by-step solution.
With 20,000 data centers being built every year, this is a massive market. The team even spoke with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy about automating data center verification. What’s even more impressive? They’ve already secured deals with AWS and Vodafone.
They used to lead a reusable rocket program and oversaw the launch of four missions. They hated engineering design software so much that they created their own — which is why they’re at YC today.
Shapol M, Founder
Co-founder & CEO at Entangl. Previously co-founded and led the Karman Space Programme, launching one of the most powerful British reusable rockets and growing it into Europe’s best-sponsored program. MEng in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London
Antanas Zilinskas, Founder
Co-founder and CTO at Entangl. Previously led the engineering of a 25km reusable student rocket. Also co-founded an AI research lab at university focusing on humanoids, as well as trajectory predictions and flight readiness monitoring for rockets. Research experience at Tokyo Tech, simulating aerotrains using ANNs.
Aiming to train future large AI models in space to make use of abundant solar energy, cooling, and the ability to freely scale up.
They are building data centers in space. They’re launching their first satellite next year, which will have the most powerful GPUs ever put in space by >100x. They will launch a larger iteration each year until they reach gigawatt scale.
This company stands out with its bold moonshot idea and has already landed customers! A demonstrator satellite is set to launch next year. Using solar energy to power data centers in space? This makes you wonder what we could do here on Earth!?
Philip Johnston, Founder/CEO
Philip is a second-time founder who previously spent time at McKinsey & Co. working on satellite projects for national space agencies. Philip has an MPA in National Security & Technology from Harvard University, an MBA from Wharton, an MA in Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics from Columbia University, and is a CFA Charter holder.
Ezra Feilden, Founder
Ezra has a decade of experience with satellite design, specializing in deployable solar arrays and large deployable structures. Ezra comes from Airbus Defense & Space (SSTL) and Oxford Space Systems, where he worked on many missions, including NASA’s Lunar Pathfinder. Ezra has a PhD in Materials Engineering from Imperial College London.
Adi Oltean, Founder
Adi has a software and hardware background. As part of SpaceX and Microsoft he delivered key features in satellite networks, operating systems, cloud and machine learning infra.
Spaceium is building unmanned servicing stations in space for mission efficiency, offering cryogenic fuel storage, in-space refueling, and robotic repair. Launching in Low Earth Orbit in 2025, with plans to expand to the Moon and Mars by 2030.
Spaceium builds fully automated space stations to refuel and repair spacecraft. They have secured $86.1 million in binding commercial contracts and have an additional $230 million in the pipeline. Additionally, they have 1 billion dollars in letters of intent. They have successfully tested their hardware, which will launch to space next year.
Their customers include launch vehicles, orbital transfer vehicles, moon landers, and spacecraft, all benefiting from increased payload and extended travel. Their long-term vision is to create service hubs along the space superhighway, connecting Earth, the Moon, and Mars to help humanity become a multi-planetary species.
The space industry is booming; many entrepreneurs are looking to build and send satellites, rockets, and other devices up into space. Building a company that services this growing economy seems like a smart strategy.
Ashi Dissanayake, Founder
In her own words: “I love space and grew up wanting to be an astronaut one day. I co-founded Spaceium to build space infrastructure for a better new space economy. I specialize in orbital mechanics and rocket propulsion systems. Previously, I worked on Aerodynamic models for NASA, built models for interplanetary transfers for an unmanned return mission to an asteroid in real time, and built rocket engines, payload structures, and recovery systems.”
Reza Fetanat, Founder
In his own words: “Believe in developing in-space infrastructure to sustainably explore space and find a better place to call home, like the first caveman stepping out of their cave. Help humanity become a multiplanetary species. I led a rocket program at university. We successfully launched 3 rockets and became fastest growing team. Fully developed 4 rocket engines and built a propulsion stability model. Built many robots including rocket tracker for recovery.”
They’re building reconfigurable chips for AI that are up to 27.6x more efficient and powerful than the H100 GPUs. This could save data centers hundreds of millions to billions in annual energy costs.
Exa is making reconfigurable chips for AI, offering superior speed and energy efficiency compared to traditional GPUs/TPUs/LPUs.
Their chips automatically adapt to each AI model, overcoming the von Neumann bottleneck. By optimizing for each architecture, they boost inference and training speeds while cutting energy use.
Imagine hardware tailored to your AI model with the flexibility of a GPU — no need to re-manufacture when changing models. This delivers speed, efficiency, and massive savings for data centers.
Why does it matter?
AI is known for consuming a lot of energy, but Exa’s chips might be changing that. Early tests show they’re nearly 28 times more efficient than Nvidia’s H100s. Even better, their chips can adapt to different models (as explained in depth on their Litepaper) with simple software configuration. Exa plans to have them ready by early 2025.
Elias Almqvist
Elias is a self-taught engineer who also studied computer science and computer engineering (dropped out and founded Exa, btw) at Chalmers University of Technology. Previously worked in the embedded software space but also worked on various aerospace projects at university.
Prithvi Raj
Prithvi holds an MEng from the world-leading Computational Stats & ML Lab at Cambridge. During his time there, he fell in love with scientific machine learning, a field that demands bespoke neural network architectures and extreme hardware efficiency, and also interned at Microsoft as a software engineer.
Oway is a marketplace that uses machine learning to make freight shipping extremely affordable for SMBs by automatically “ridesharing” shipments using unused truck space going along the same route.
Oway is a rideshare freight platform that uses machine learning to automatically coordinate and sell unused space in trucks to SMBs at a 50% discount for lightning-fast shipping.
They also improve the survivability of independent truckers by maximizing their revenue when they’re already on the road — and it’s great for the environment too.
The startup lets small businesses share truck space and save money on shipping — ridesharing for freight, essentially. It’s faster and cheaper — what’s not to like about this?
Phillip Nadjafov
Founder of Oway, an ML-based online rideshare platform that makes small-batch freight shipping affordable for everyone.
Self-taught engineer and occasional car designer.
They are building ultra-cheap un-jammable navigation systems for drones.
They’ve built a Visual Navigation System (VNS) that can be retrofit onto any drone that mimics a GPS. Their VNS uses cameras and an accelerometer/gyroscope as well as reference satellite imagery for positioning. The system is entirely self contained, can’t be jammed and has no RF signature.
Drones have revolutionized warfare — providing real-time surveillance and precision strikes, all without putting pilots at risk. But here’s the catch: jamming technology can render them useless. This issue has been a major challenge in the Russia-Ukraine war. Theseus claims their drones can dodge jamming, even against sophisticated opponents like Russia.
Carl Schoeller, Founder
Carl is developing defense systems independent of GPS. Before that, he designed and built around 2,000 unique parts, some of which are in mass production for the Tesla Cybertruck and an Apple product.
Ian Laffey, Founder
Ian focuses on GPS-denied navigation for drones.
Sacha Levy, Founder
Sacha specializes in UAV navigation within GPS-denied environments.
Not on the list, but on my radar from the W2024 batch:
They are building the world’s first open-source general-purpose humanoid robot.
They designed and built a fully-featured humanoid robot that anyone with a 3D printer and some time can build on their own. They are releasing it for anyone to build themself, along with an operating system that will enable the robot to perform basic task and learn from experience.
They’re confident in saying they’ve nailed the best general-purpose hardware design for our BOM cost and here’s the exciting part: they’re giving it away for free!
Marr Labs launches Vox Mortgage, an AI voice agent built for the mortgage industry. It offers instant lead engagement and warm transfers to live agents. Vox increases lead conversion, streamlines pre-qualification, and integrates with your CRM while meeting regulatory standards.
Marr Labs, founded by Han and Dave (creators of Vlingo, acquired for $225M), is developing AI-voice agents that are indistinguishable from humans. These agents can handle a wide range of phone-based tasks like answering calls, scheduling, and sales, at a fraction of the cost of human agents. With 17 billion calls made annually in the US, they are tapping into an $85 billion market.
It’s impossible not to get excited about these!
The future’s a blank page, no better time to start building!
How about you? Which one would you bet on?
Meet Nihal:
Hey there! I’m Nihal, an engineer turned product strategist with a strong background in B2B dynamics and a proud Included VC Fellow. With entrepreneurial roots and work experience across 14 countries, my focus is on helping founders build products and teams that matter. Curious about the mind behind the keyboard? Let’s connect — drop me a line!
Fun fact: I launched my first business at 12 years old.
Resources:
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