The World’s Most Promising Startups Founded By POC
CB Insights released its latest list of the world’s most promising startups, including a number of companies founded by people of color.
CB Insights collected the company’s investors, headcount growth, and commercial relationships to identify 345 of the most promising private startups from their database of 1 million companies.
The industries include fintech, AI, insurtech, generative AI, and retail tech.
We have compiled a list of some people of color-owned startups featured.
Airbase – Thejo Kote
Thejo Kote founded Airbase in 2017 and has been its CEO since then.
Airbase develops a modern spend management platform focusing on financial technology solutions.
The company offers a suite of services, including accounts payable automation, expense management, and corporate cards, all aimed at controlling spending, closing books faster, and managing financial risk.
Cowbell Cyber – Jack Kudale
Cowbell Cyber is a cyber risk insurance provider for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The company delivers cyber insurance policies customized to each organization’s needs and identified risk exposures and uses risk signals, AI, and technology to provide solutions to agents and brokers.
It was founded in 2019 by Indian-born Jack Kudale and is based in Dallas, Texas.
Jeeves – Dileep Thazhmon
Dileep Thazhmon is CEO and co-founder of Jeeves, a fintech company out of YCombinator that reached unicorn status in just two years.
Jeeves operates as an expensive management platform offering corporate credit cards.
It focuses on corporate-related expenses, including vendor payouts and invoicing.
Moniepoint – Tosin Eniolorunda & Felix Ike
Moniepoint is a fintech company founded by Tosin Eniolorunda and Felix Ike in 2015 that focuses on providing financial solutions for businesses.
Moniepoint provides payment services, banking, credit, and business management tools.
It also supports businesses and enables owners to access full-service technological solutions to grow, manage, and protect their companies.
It was formerly known as TeamApt, founded in 2015.
Credo AI – Navrina Singh
Navirna Singh is the Founder and CEO of Credo AI, a Governance SaaS platform empowering enterprises to deliver Responsible AI.
Credo AI provides an AI-based security platform, helping organizations shape AI development into a workflow assessment that evaluates AI models’ data, decisions, and deployment.
Credo AI was founded in 2020 and is based in Palo Alto, California.
Glean – Arvind Jain
Glean was founded by a seasoned team of former Google search engineers and industry veterans, including Founder and CEO Arvind Jain.
Glean operates as an AI-powered enterprise search and knowledge discovery platform.
The search platform helps users to find exact data points and provides relevant search results based on their queries.
