We’re excited to announce the 30 Washington tech startups we’ve selected for our sixth Founder Cohort Program — our biggest class to date. The virtual program — part of the WTIA Startup Program — aligns with our mission to build a strong technology sector in a thriving community in Washington State and beyond. In that vein, the Founder Cohort helps seed-stage startups grow and scale over the course of 6 months by following a distinct roadmap designed to guide them through their next milestones as they navigate increasing revenue, securing investment and growing the team.

Each startup participating in Founder Cohort must be: 

• headquartered in Washington State, 
• have at least one product in development, 
• have annual revenue of less than $1 million, and 
• pass a rigorous application process. 

Led by a committee of seasoned tech founders and entrepreneurs — including Dave Parker, a 5x founder, mentor and author; Susan Preston of SeaChange Fund; and Leslie Feinzaig of Female Founders Alliance — the program will support each company and guide them through the crucial stages of fundraising, corporate governance and customer development.

“Growing and scaling a company doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” said Dave Parker, WTIA Startup Program’s Board Chair. “At the outset of a startup’s life, every decision, and the speed and timing of those decisions, matters to its success — or failure. Building a solid network is the other piece of that puzzle. That’s why we’ve carefully built the Founder Cohort program to serve founders’ unique needs and connect them with the right people, to set them on the best possible trajectory for success as early as possible, and support them every step of the way.”

Congratulations to the sixth cohort of founders selected for the program!

Companies selected for the Founder Cohort include:

• 2D Metric – Thomas (Chad) Hill, Russell Fitzgerald
• Accelero.ai – Jay Banerjee, Anu Engineer
• Aerlink Ltd – Finn Mulligan, Sanjaya Krishna
• AGTools – Martha Montoya, Gustavo Montoya
• Allio Fintech – Joseph Gradante, David Chen, Bobby McLaughlin, Raymond Micaletti, Anabel Strong
• Altopa – Nicole Wicker, Brent Poole
• Biocellion – Simon Kahan, Chris Clark
• Bluedot Photonics – Jared Silvia, Daniel Kroupa, Matthew Crane, Daniel Gamelin
• Code 5 Games – Jon Lawrence, Andrei Beziazychnyi, Julie Worthington
• Cognition Med – Gautam Nayak, Sanjay Khicha, Anil Ramjiani, Harish Dhurvasula
• Corpus Group dba SKIN2O – Sean Patrick Harrington, Jenna Blaha
• Corumat Inc. – Michael Waggoner
• Curie – Jasper Yao, Michael Agustin, Quoc Tran
• CuriosityBased – Dr. Julie Pham, Hnin Johnson, Dr. Judy Lee
• Excy – Michele Mehl, Mike Rector
• FaveKitchens Inc – Praveen Akula, Satheesh Kanchi, Kalyan Nadipalli, Ramana Narayana
• FriendWithA – Stefan Cordova, Alexander Tereshkin
• HUMiN Technologies – Mitch Shepard, Jenny Mesdag
• Iasis Molecular Sciences Corporation – David J. Vachon
• Inyore Inc – Sidney James
• Lalo – Juan Medina, Steven Atkinson, Auvik Mir
• Lubn Inc – YC Chung
• Microclimates – Neda Vaseghi, Loren West
• Moonbeam Inc. – Nirav Desai, Trond Nielsen, Rajen Savjani, Michael Farber
• Motyv AI – Kevin Cronk
• PetHub.com – Tom Arnold, Lorien Clemens
• Regenerated Textiles – Zahlen Titcomb, Lisa Graham, Karim Lessard, Ruth True, Kristen Albrecht
• Votegrity Inc – Tom Thomas, Tim Manion, Ashley Carson, Ally Witeck
• VTeamLabs – Vineet Manuja, Madhup Verma
• wikwik – Brad Roberts, Amanda Duncan, Lana Fernando, Jordan Bundy

Thank you to our Founder Cohort 6 Sponsors: Clark Nuber, Denali Financial Consulting, Fenwick & West LLP, J.P.Morgan, Madrona Venture Group, NOW CFO, Pike Place Partners, Rippling, Seed IP, and Wilson Sonsini.