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Founders: Jensen Coonradt (MIT), Simmi Sen (Stanford)

Company: Crebit

What? Fastest and cheapest foreign exchange powered by stablecoins.

Why? International students often pay an extra 4-10% in foreign exchange fees on their tuition payments. With stablecoins, we’re able to completely reduce that and help our classmates save thousands.

What’s next? We just launched on the App Store and are now expanding to several more countries. We envision Crebit as becoming the go-to neobank for international students. We’re also partnering with university credit unions like MSUFCU.

My Notes:

• Jensen and Simmi are incredibly young (both graduated high school in 2024) and are backed by a16z Speedrun. In high school, Jensen developed a patent-pending algae biofiltration system to combat air pollution in schools and designed an ultrasonic backpack to assist the visually impaired. He's also taught free coding and circuitry classes to low-income Boston students and developed robotics curriculum for underserved schools. In high school, Simmi founded Tints, a high-end, hand-embroidered clothing brand worn by Offset, Meghan Trainor, the D'Amelios, and more, and grew the company's Instagram account to 50k followers. Wow, thoroughly impressed!

Founders: Bryan Hong (UC Berkeley), Andre Braga (UC Santa Barbara), Braiden Dishman (UC Santa Barbara), Alexzendor Misra (UC Santa Barbara)

Company: Shofo (YC W26)

What? We maintain the largest index of short-form videos and run a human-in-the-loop pipeline to clean, segment, and label content. Labs can query this index to generate custom, structured training datasets tailored to their models.

Why? Our team met building Correkt, a multimodal AI search engine that reached 43k users. We'd built a giant video index to let people search for memes across social media, but along the way, AI labs started reaching out wanting access to it. Turns out we'd built a structured and searchable dataset of short-form videos, which was perfect for training modern AI models. So we pivoted and built Shofo (YC W26).

What’s next? We believe video is the next frontier for AI models, just as text was for LLMs. We're building the Common Crawl for video: a single, structured library where AI labs and researchers can pull whatever video dataset they need off the shelf, on demand.

My Notes:

• Shofo has 100M+ videos indexed, 200+ fields per video, and covers 4 platforms (TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, and X). They only charge $0.0005 per record. Interested in beauty & fashion videos from Brazil that got the most comments between October and December 2025? What about cooking videos with hand-object interactions from 2025? Shofo's got you.

• There is an enormous amount of video content that can be used to train modern AI, from video foundation models (that generate video) to multimodal alignment (connecting visuals with speech and text), embedding and retrieval systems, and more.

Founder: Alfred Arnaud (UC Berkeley)

Company: Shredder

What? Matchmaking app for skiers and snowboarders.

Why? We launched in August of 2025.

What’s next? We’ve grown Shredder to over 110,000 users and 70M+ organic views with zero paid acquisition. Next, we’re building an AI-powered matchmaker that improves connections using real riding data. In parallel, we’re launching what we believe will be the largest creator program ever built for a consumer app, turning creators into our primary growth engine as we scale.

My Notes:

• To provide more context, Shredder is a social platform designed for people to track their performance on the slopes and connect with others at snow spots (think Strava for skiing and snowboarding). You can track and record stats like speed, distance, vertical feet, runs, and days on snow. They're building an AI-powered matching algorithm to help connect people, presumably of similar ability levels, which is super cool and relevant to other consumer platforms as well. Shredder also helps people find rides to the mountain, share travel plans, and organize events.

• Shredder's mascot is a robot that they've taken to ski resorts, where it's been mobbed by people who post and share about it. Clever way to engineer virality!

Founders: Carter Munk (USC), Tess Sutter (Bucknell), Filipe Alvarenga (Unisinos)

Company: Pinned Social

What? Pinned is a people-powered, map-first social app that helps Gen Z solve the “what’s the move?” problem. It lets you see what your friends are doing in real time, discover friend-vetted spots, and join plans spontaneously.

Why? I started Pinned after realizing how often plans die in group chats and how lonely a hyper-connected generation can still feel. After building and stepping away from Cerca, I wanted to tackle coordination and real-world connection at its core.

What’s next? We’ve grown to 10K+ on the waitlist and launched our NYC beta with 150 testers, generating hundreds of spontaneous pins in just the first weeks. Next, we’re rolling out a redesigned search and discovery layer, expanding to more campuses and cities, and refining the product ahead of a full App Store launch. Long term, our vision is to become the coordination layer for Gen Z - the people-powered map that turns passive scrolling into real-world connection.

My Notes:

• Check out Carter's LinkedIn posts throughout Pinned Social's beta. He's been building in public, sharing beta feedback and short clips of the platform, and has grown a 10k waitlist in a super short period of time with zero paid marketing spend!

Founders: Samira Salifu (Drexel), Rukaiah Edhah (Mercy)

Company: Masira

What? Masira is a platform that helps shoppers discover sustainable fashion and learn how to style one product in multiple ways.

Why? We started Masira because shopping today focuses on selling single items instead of helping people build real wardrobes, which leaves many of us with full closets but nothing to wear. After experiencing this ourselves, we built Masira to focus on quality, personal style, and showing how pieces work together so people can buy less and wear more.

What’s next? Next, we’re working on growing our brand partnerships to improve our AI recommendations and offer shoppers more personalized options. So far, we’ve reached over 522 total visitors for our beta.

My Notes:

• Masira has recently opened up their beta! The platform responds to natural language queries like "tailored pants I can wear to work and weekends." Every item comes with multiple styled outfit ideas showing how it fits into a real wardrobe. This is super cool! AI integration and styling in e-commerce improves the user experience drastically (+ can encourage cross-selling of other items through the site).

Thank you for reading!!

Hope you enjoyed this issue of Builders Report! We’re excited to spotlight more young founders in the coming weeks.

Want to be featured? Fill out this form.

Feedback or ideas? Email me at adrian@telilabs.com.

Want to get Builders Report straight to your inbox? Subscribe below.

If you’re a young founder or know someone who is, don’t hesitate to fill out this form to be considered for a feature in an upcoming issue.

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Founders: Celeste Amadon (Stanford), Asher Allen (Stanford)

Company: Known

What? We are building intelligence for human connection, starting with a dating product (a matchmaker).

Why? We started it because we realized AI’s ability to understand us could be used to connect us rather than simulate companionship.

What’s next? We raised a $10M seed earlier this year and just launched our beta and opening it to public in SF on the 15th of Feb! We’re throwing a thousand person party at sf mint on the 14th. Next we are going nyc. We want to retire the swipe and make dating intentional again.

Other Notes:

• Read more about Known’s $10M seed in TechCrunch here. The team originally set out to build an AI app that booked restaurants for dates, but quickly realized the bigger opportunity was encouraging people to meet in person. Known was born out of a voice-powered AI onboarding experience that replaces forms with conversation, with users spending an average of 26 minutes talking to the app. After onboarding, the AI suggests matches and enforces momentum by giving users 24 hours to accept an introduction and another 24 hours to schedule a date, while also helping pick restaurants and coordinate availability for real-world meetups.

• Known’s X launch video on February 1st got 1.5M views.

Founders: Mark Lin (UCLA)

Company: Sliimeyhoney

What? The world’s premier gourmet slime company, shipping widely accessible sensory experiences to millions across the globe.

Why? I loved slime and wanted to share my creations with the world.

What’s next? We’re optimizing different sales channels and working on delivering high quality creatives that will boost our revenue. We’re also creating new sensory experiences - slime cooking kits, birthday party kits, etc. - that go beyond just delivering a singular finished slime but also create tactile, fun experiences for our customers to enjoy. In a world that increasingly depends on technology, we deliver screenless, unforgettable memories.

Other Notes:

• I highly recommend checking out their website. They drop new slimes every Saturday at 11am PST (wow!). Slimes include Endless Blueberries, Starfruit Explosion, Banana Milk, Honeycomb Cookie, Cotton Candy Clouds, Lavender Fluff, and more. I may or may not be making a purchase.

• Mark (Founder & CEO) pitched the concept on Shark Tank at age 18.

• Sliimeyhoney has 1.1M+ followers on TikTok.

• Per Mark’s LinkedIn, the company has generated over $2.9M in revenue, shipped 200k+ units to customers in 100+ countries, and has a team of 10 employees.

Founders: Tamish Pulappadi (Stanford), Archish Arun (Stanford), Sid Yu (Stanford)

Company: Cocreate (YC S25)

What? We’re building Cocreate, an AI-native video production platform that prepares a full day of shooting for edit in under 20 minutes. It automatically verifies backups, understands slates, syncs audio/video, embeds metadata, generates proxies, and outputs a ready-to-edit project structure for Avid, Premiere, Resolve, and Final Cut.

Why? We built Cocreate after years of firsthand frustration with broken ingest workflows, lost time, and manual assistant-editor work that slows productions before editing even begins. By building alongside assistant editors, DITs, and post teams, we set out to create the tool we always wished existed.

What’s next? We were used on 3 Super Bowl commercials so far. We’re expanding our private beta with high-end post houses, commercial teams and feature length film sets. Next, we’re deepening on-set capabilities, with the long-term vision of making assistant-editor work instant, consistent, and invisible across the industry.

Interesting tidbits about Cocreate:

• From Guitar Prodigy to YC Founder. Tamish (Co-Founder & CEO) is a former guitar prodigy from Bengaluru who, at age 13, became the youngest-ever Ernie Ball Music Man endorsee and the first Indian to earn the honor.

• Check out their YC Launch here.

Founders: Palak Agarwal (University of Waterloo)

Company: Serve

What? Serve is an iOS camera app that learns your photography style and provides personalized, real-time AI coaching while you shoot. Guidance on composition, lighting, framing etc. so you don’t have to spend hours explaining your ideal shot to whoever's behind the camera.

Why? I realized that major photography app players were focused on AI editing or filters, but real-time guidance was lacking. AI assistance was increasingly becoming common in daily workflows, so why not photography.

What’s next? We’re currently beta testing with our 1k waitlist and hoping for as much feedback as possible before a public App Store launch later in the year. I’d love for Serve to become everyone’s go-to daily photography assistant. We’re also planning in-person event activations in consumer hubs like Vegas, NYC, and Europe to drive viral growth!

Check out Serve’s viral launch video, which got 250k views on X. The app coaches users in real time so girls no longer have to train their boyfriends to take good photos.

Founders: Anjo Therattil (Rutgers)

Company: LockGuard

What? LockGuard is a B2B security solution for universities, apartments, and the commercial sector, designed for high scale high traffic areas, where traditional smart locks and cameras are not feasible. Our universal product allows for an easy retrofit to all doors without making any modifications to the hardware, while providing real-time insights to building security and other trusted individuals, allowing for significantly faster response times to intrusions.

Why? Living in a dorm, I constantly forgot to lock the door, at which point I was on the search for security solutions for dorms. Seeing that there were no viable solutions for students, I knew I had to build a product for non-traditional spaces ignored by smart security giants.

What’s next? We used to be in the consumer market but recently pivoted to a B2B focus. We're working to deploy our solution in multiple markets in the coming months. At the same time, we're actively exploring new partnerships and a path to market in the travel sector, where safety is often at the forefront of travelers’ minds, especially when in unfamiliar areas.

Founders: Parker Gurney (USC), Nabeel Trimzi (USC), Heather Liu (USC), Sanjna Sunil (USC)

Company: Helios

What? We are building Helios, a software platform that helps scientists decide which drug compounds to advance by predicting toxicity, survival, and target binding before lab work.

Why? We started Helios after seeing how much time and money early drug discovery loses on compounds that fail lab testing. We wanted to give researchers clear signals to help save money and time.

What’s next? We have secured four early partnerships and are projecting 60k in ARR. In the near term, we are deepening integrations with design partners and expanding model coverage. Long term, our vision is to build a proprietary dataset on drug discovery that compounds in value and drives better decisions across the entire pipeline.

Thank you for reading!!

Hope you enjoyed this issue of Builders Report! We’re excited to spotlight more young founders in the coming weeks.

Want to be featured? Fill out this form.

Feedback or ideas? Email me at adrian@telilabs.com.

Want to get Builders Report straight to your inbox? Subscribe below.

Subscribe now

The format will likely evolve over time, but for this first issue, we’re spotlighting 4 startups and what they’re building, why they started, and what’s next.

If you’re a college-aged founder or know someone who is, don’t hesitate to fill out this form to be featured in a future issue!

Also, if you haven’t yet, join our community of readers by subscribing below:

Subscribe now

Founders: Evan Rama (University of Texas at Austin ‘27), Param Patel (Rutgers ‘27)

Company: KupidTV

What? Building the first live streamed prediction market with 60 second settlements.

Why? We built the KupidTV product after running our college shows and realizing the biggest bottleneck wasn’t demand, it was that most people were stuck as spectators instead of active participants. Media over the last decade has been engineered for passive consumption, so we designed KupidTV to flip that turning live college shows into an interactive environment where the audience drives what happens next.

What’s next? Reached 100M+ lifetime views, 9K ticket transactions, 18 of 18 sold out college events, and 5K users. We have plans to reach 100K users, 500M lifetime views, 70 live shows, and over 60K ticket transactions by June 2026, becoming the largest entertainment hub in the nation.

Founders: Abbi Park (Harvard ‘28), Nelson Bellows (Wesleyan ‘26), Pierce Buckner-Wolfson (Wesleyan ‘26)

Company: Spike

What? The prediction market for short form content.

Why? We started Spike after seeing real behavior on Abbi’s Tiktok. People constantly saying things like “investing at 300 likes,” even though no platform actually let them do that.

What’s next? We have completed the beta launch round with 400+ users and launched our product + viral video on Sunday December 8th. We are currently raising our pre-seed round!

Founder: Raf Shlla (Pace ‘26)

Company: Elora App

What? Elora is a matching platform that connects clients with the right hairstylists based on their unique hair profile. We’re building the trusted infrastructure for personalized beauty services, starting with hair.

Why? I started Elora after years of struggling to find stylists who understood the needs of fake-blonde, textured, or high-maintenance hair—realizing this wasn’t just my problem, but a widespread industry gap. I wanted to build a platform where expertise, not luck, determines your beauty experience.

What’s next? We recently launched our first public version and are now focused on scaling our stylist and client base across NYC. Over the next stage, we’re refining our matching engine, expanding stylist tools, and strengthening retention on both sides of the marketplace. Our long-term vision is to become the global booking and discovery layer for beauty services, eliminating the trial-and-error that defines the industry today. Success for us is a world where every person can instantly find a beauty professional they trust.

Founders: Madison Lo (Western ‘26), Nico Mingorance-Geraldo (Western ‘26)

Company: Agora Marketplace

What? We are building Agora, an online farmers market that connects local food to people and businesses. It is a centralized platform that makes buying, selling, and delivering local food effortless for everyone, you can almost think of it as an Instacart for farms.

Why? My co-founder and I grew up close to local food and farming. We know local food is the future, but the systems behind it are stuck in the past.

What’s next? We just wrapped our initial validation, early funding, and kicking off our first partnerships and deliveries. Next for Agora is turning that traction into our first live weekly routes with restaurants across Ontario while onboarding more farms to build a reliable supply network. From there, we’ll open the platform to families and bring the online farmers market to life as we launch into our first city and begin our pre-seed and seed raise. Success for us means becoming the digital infrastructure for local food and empowering farmers, restaurants, and consumers across North America.

Founders: Saul Brauns (Rice)

Company: Bridge

What? Bridge is a community-driven dating experience where a predictive algorithm uses real human input to curate intentional, high-quality matches. Instead of endless swiping, users invest just 5 minutes a day to receive one thoughtful introduction at a time.

Why? Swiping is dead, and online dating is lonely. With 78 percent of users reporting burnout, I wanted to create a dating experience that feels human again — one built on intention, community, and quality over quantity matches.

What’s next? Over winter break, I’ll be posting daily on LinkedIn, sharing my schedule and a live tracker of my coding hours as I commit to at least 10 hours a day. When I return to campus in January, I’ll begin filming daily entertainment content for the “bridge.date” Instagram to prepare for my February posting schedule, where I’ll release one video every day. Then, on February 28, I’ll drop the Bridge launch video, kicking off beta testing at Rice and beginning the next cycle of iteration and expansion.

Thank you for reading!!

Hope you enjoyed the first issue of Dorm Report! We’re excited to spotlight more college-aged founders in the coming weeks.

Want to be featured? Fill out this form.

Feedback or ideas? Email me at adrian@telilabs.com.

Want to get Dorm Report straight to your inbox? Subscribe below.

Subscribe now