Lily Wang

Demi’s CEO, Lily, has been thinking about food waste her entire life. Her father was a rice farmer during the Cultural Revolution in China and engrained in her always to be conscientious about organic waste and to honor the earth. Her lifelong interest in the intersection of sustainability and society led her to study Environmental Science, Technology, and International Affairs at Georgetown, where she experienced firsthand the challenges of composting as an apartment-dweller. Since then, she has been honing her business acumen, first as a strategy consultant, then as an impact investor, and now as an Obama Scholar at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. In addition to the Obama Foundation, her work on Demi has been recognized by the Institute of Real Estate Management and the C200 Committee for Women Entrepreneurs.

 

Andrew Lee

Demi’s CTO, Andrew, is a full-stack software developer and trained engineer, with expertise in product design and development for both software platforms and physical products alike. He has experience working in start-up environments and developing solutions from scratch across the SaaS and EdTech industries. He is of the belief that technology, when employed correctly, offers an opportunity to better the lives of many and of our planet. Andrew is currently pursuing his MBA at University of Chicago, and holds a BE in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University.

 

Demi Composting

Demi is on a mission to create a healthier planet by making composting mainstream. We partner with building managers to take the mess out of composting for the 40% of Americans that live in apartments, using data-driven logistics. We offer urban residents sleek bins, streamlined pick-up services, and a mobile app to help cultivate an entire culture of composting. Because big impact starts with small choices; and a food waste-free future begins with Demi.

Antonio Chan

Antonio was born and raised in Taiwan and attended Taipei American school for HS. Antonio graduated from Emory University with a major in computer science and a minor in physics. Antonio then worked at Wayfair and StockX as a Sr. iOS engineer before working at a startup called HEIR where Antonio was first exposed to the world of web3 and NFTs. Towards the end of 2022, Antonio decided to pursue web3 full-time and founded an NFT project called Bao Society that had done over $1M in primary sales and 600+ ETH in secondary sales. Along the way of building Bao Society, Antonio had noticed the tremendous technical barriers to web3 and decided it’s time to solve that problem once and for all with CRFTD.

 

CRFTD

CRFTD is a code-less and e2e software that enables creators and projects to confidently setup a web3 presence. CRFTD features a full suite of the most popular and advanced applications of blockchain technology such as NFT generation, NFT staking, token generation, blockchain powered storefronts and make it as easy as filling out a form to setup.

Shaan Franchi

Shaan Franchi is the co-founder/CEO of Hostfi. He previously worked at Goldman Sachs, Marcus, Clarity Money, and other fintech startups for 4 years in various product and growth roles. He graduated from Cornell and is from the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Avi Singh

Avi Singh is the co-founder/CTO of Hostfi. He previously was the co-founder and CTO of a seed-funded business messaging startup for 3 years and before that, he worked at various startups and tech companies, including Amazon. He graduated from UC Berkeley and is from the Atlanta area.

 

Hostfi

Hostfi offers a premium card for short-term rental hosts with cash back rewards, insights, and automated tax tools.

Diya Sharma

Diya is a first generation immigrant who previously led product design for various consumer facing products at LinkedIn. Prior to LinkedIn she was one of the early hires at Sindeo (a fintech startup, was later acquired by Renren). Diya had her fair share of struggle to remain in this country of dreams as an immigrant, she was awarded an O1 visa by USCIS in 2015.
She received her bachelors in Industrial design from Rhode Island School of Design where she was always surrounded by creatives. The creative community fuels her and she is passionate about empowering them by helping them monetize their passion/skillset.

 

Soak Experiences

Soak is a marketplace that helps creatives and locals share immersive experiences. We are creating a new segment within the gig economy where people can host experiences led by local creatives (chefs, musicians, makers) in their own home or office.

Sonal Bagga

Sonal has 21+ Years experience in product & engineering at Goldman Sachs, Boston Consulting Group, Jet.com, Motorola.She has held Director level positions, managed and executed delivery of large scale engineering systems. She has a Master’s Degree (Software Engineering) from Carnegie Mellon University.

 

Kai Xu

Kai is a proven entrepreneur as the founder of a successful Chinese dating app (布咕) and a private investment firm (Balius Capital).Has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and a Master’s degree in Finance from Boston College.

 

Namma

Namma wants to make the family and friends network the first source of capital for the world. We want to do so by making the process of borrowing, lending and transacting money easy & less awkward by providing features of formalization, legality and management around them.

Kelly Pan

Kelly Pan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Impact Food. She is a foodie turned entrepreneur on a mission to reimagine a more sustainable food system. After watching many documentaries and learning about industrial food production systems, she realized that the way we use animals for food is not only extremely cruel, but also very inefficient and harmful for the environment. When Kelly began transitioning to a plant-based diet, she found that there were very limited alternatives to animal meat – especially for seafood. She loves sushi, so raw whole cut seafood was the perfect place to start.

While completing her Business degree at UC Berkeley Haas, Kelly met her Co-Founders: computer scientist Stephanie Claudino Daffara and biochemist Adrian Miranda. Previously, Kelly has led multiple interdisciplinary teams and launched impact-driven projects, including a pro-bono consulting organization for small businesses. She is excited to bring tasty and accessible Impact Food to the masses!

 

Impact Food

At Impact Food, we’re dedicated to building a more sustainable and resilient food system by creating alternative protein products that taste and perform just like their animal counterparts, starting with seafood. Our novel food technology platform harnesses the power of plants and scientific innovation to create delicious and nutritious plant-based whole cut seafood. We’re shifting our global food system away from animals with plant-based products that are better for you and the planet.

Travis-Atreo Graham

Travis-Atreo Graham is a singer, songwriter, producer, artist coach, mentor, and record label owner. He was the lead singer of the AAPI band New Heights from 2006-2012, and in 2014 began his solo career after Taylor Swift retweeted one of his covers of her hit song “Style”. After 270m Spotify streams and over 75m views on YouTube, Travis’s self proclaimed purpose is to reduce suffering for artists of all kinds, and looks to do just that with Fanded.

 

Kingsley Ma

Kingsley’s passion for technology and the internet began when his dad brought home a 386 computer complete with a dot matrix printer, dial-up modem, and a copy of AOL Online. He dove head first into a career in software after graduating with a degree in computer science from UCSD. The smartphone revolution brought him back to Silicon Valley where he helped various startups with successful exits and most recently an IPO at UserTesting. Today, he’s building a fundraising platform for artists as a co-founder of Fanded. He enjoys his downtime playing golf and looking for the next great cup of boba with his wife and two young sons.

 

Fanded

Fanded is a crowdfunding investment portal that allows artists to seek investment funds from their fans and supporters for their next album project. We believe by allowing fans to become bigger stakeholders in the new albums of their favorite artists, we will create a better ecosystem for independent artists to finally create lasting financial sustainability.

Krystal Persaud

Krystal Persaud is the co-founder & CEO of Wildgrid. Krystal is a second time founder in solar, she previously founded Grouphug Solar where she designed & manufactured designer solar panels that hang in windows. Grouphug Solar was featured on Shark Tank, got Mark Cuban as an angel investor, and was featured in top tier media (TODAY show, Wall Street Journal, People.com). She was previously employee number three & Director of Product Design at hardware startup littleBits (acquired by Sphero in 2018).

 

Parinda Darden

Parinda Darden is the co-founder & CTO of Wildgrid. Parinda has been a tech leader at several high growth NYC startups for the past 10 years. She was the tech lead at Ticket Evolution, a secondary event ticketing software company. She went on to become an early employee at Ellevest, the digital investment platform by Sallie Krawcheck, working as an software engineer on their growth team. Most recently she was a founding engineer at Atoms, the DTC shoe brand and Y Combinator company.

 

Wildgrid

Wildgrid is a marketplace making it dead easy for millennials and GenZs to ditch fossil fuels and switch to solar energy. We have plans available for anyone – homeowners and renters (rooftop solar, community solar, & more). We’re specifically targeting Millennials & Gen Zs because they are the most passionate about climate change, yet underserved by the solar industry.