In our weekly tech mafia series we cover the biggest tech mafias in Silicon Valley and beyond, taking a closer look at what companies former employees have started, how much money they’ve raised, and who their investors are.
What is a tech mafia group?
Disruptive startups like PayPal have produced a line of ex employees who go on to start their own influential startups. For example, employees who worked at PayPal went on to found companies like LinkedIn and YouTube.
The Uber Mafia
This week we cover the top 66 startups founded by former employees of Uber, including rising stars.
Quick stats on the Uber Mafia:
The breakdown starts off with the leading companies, and the second section of the article lists the "Rising Stars". Two companies from the Uber Mafia have already gone public - Bird and BarkBox. At the moment, the Apple Mafia still ranks number one with the biggest number of startups to have gone public (15 in total according to our research).
Founder: Achuthanand Ravi
Uber Role: Technical Recruiting Lead - EMEA
Capital Raised: $14.7M
Investors: Global Founders Capital
Stage: Seed
Kula is an automation platform for proactive recruitment teams. It streamlines outbound hiring, increases recruiter yield by 50%, and enables personalized candidate engagement across multiple channels.
Founder: Travis VanderZanden
Uber Role: VP of Global Driver Growth
Capital Raised: $916M
Investors: Sequoia Capital
Stage: Public
Collaborating with cities and universities worldwide, Bird offers new transportation options that complement public transit systems and invests in safety infrastructure.
Founder: Piero Molino, Travis Addair
Uber Role: Staff ML / NLP Research Scientist, Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $28.5M
Investors: Greylock
Stage: Series A
Predibase accelerates AI initiatives by offering a low-code, declarative platform. It enables engineers and data scientists to effortlessly build, optimize, and deploy advanced models with minimal code.
Founder: Brian Vallelunga, Phillip Chao
Uber Role: Lead Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $28.8M
Investors: CRV
Stage: Series A
Doppler is the trusted SecretOps platform for multi-cloud environments, providing scalable secrets management. Their mission is to simplify and improve SecretOps, starting with developers.
Founder: Zahid Shaikh
Uber Role: Senior Product Manager
Capital Raised: $75.6M
Investors: FJ Labs
Stage: Series B
Sardine provides instant and secure transactions for consumers and businesses. With a focus on combating fraud and reducing risks, Sardine offers the world's leading API for fraud detection and compliance in financial services.
Founder: Peter Hazlehurst
Uber Role: Head of Uber Money
Capital Raised: $60.4M
Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners
Stage: Series A
Synctera is a leading provider of Banking as a Service (BaaS), offering a comprehensive platform for accounts, cards, payments, lending, and more.
Founder: Amine Anoun
Uber Role: Data Scientist
Capital Raised: $155.6M
Investors: Village Global
Stage: Series C
Evisort is revolutionizing contract intelligence with AI-powered solutions. Their platform enables contract lifecycle management and analysis, connecting contract data to unlock productivity and deliver digital workflows.
Founder: Ali Kashani
Uber Role: Head of Serve Robotics
Capital Raised: $23M
Investors: Scott Banister
Stage: Series A
Serve Robotics is leading the way in sustainable and self-driving delivery solutions. Their zero-emissions rovers are designed to efficiently serve people in public spaces, starting with food delivery.
Founder: Arvind Sundararajan
Uber Role: Senior Staff Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $90.3M
Investors: Index Ventures
Stage: Series C
Abacus.AI is revolutionizing the field of data science with the world's first AI-assisted platform for building ML systems and AI agents at scale.
Founder: Gary Marcus
Uber Role: Director, Uber AI Labs
Capital Raised: $42.5M
Investors: Playground Global
Stage: Series A
Robust.AI is an innovative company founded by a world-class team of robotics experts. Their vision is to harness the power of AI, robotics, and human-centred design to revolutionize the way robots work for people.
Founder: Paul Mikesell
Uber Role: Director Infrastructure Engineering / Staff Engineer
Capital Raised: $65.9M
Investors: Anthos
Stage: Series C
Seattle-based agricultural robotics startup - Carbon Robotics, was founded in 2018. The company specializes in developing innovative agricultural tools that enhance operational efficiency for farmers.
Founder: Davor Tremac, Filip Sturman, Ivan Ivankovic
Uber Role: General Manager, Senior Manager, Senior Operations & Logistics Manager
Capital Raised: $85M
Investors: FJ Labs
Stage: Series B
Fonoa is a global provider of tax automation and compliance solutions, simplifying the entire transactional process for companies. Their platform enables digital businesses to effortlessly handle tax compliance, offering features such as tax calculations, invoicing, tax ID validations, and more
Founder: Danish Chopra
Uber Role: Technical Lead
Capital Raised: $18.3M
Investors: RET Ventures
Stage: Series A
Amenify is a cloud-based software platform that caters to the lifestyle needs of residential homes worldwide.
Founder: Ian Villa, Mark Moore
Uber Role: Head of Strategy, Engineering Director of Aviation
Capital Raised: $39.5M
Investors: Lux Capital
Stage: Series A
Whisper Aero is at the forefront of advancing air propulsion technology, offering cleaner, quieter, and more efficient solutions for drones, jets, and other applications.
Founder: Kyle Miller, Stephen Hebson
Uber Role: Product Manager, Software Engineering Manager
Capital Raised: $123M
Investors: Homebrew
Stage: Series A
Nelo is a company dedicated to enhancing the purchasing capacity of consumers in Latin America. They have developed a digital payment management platform that enables users to track their financial transactions effectively.
Founder: Anurag Kanungo, Harishma Dayanidhi
Uber Role: Senior Autonomy Engineer, Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $18M
Investors: MTech Capital
Stage: Series A
Voxel leverages computer vision and AI to empower security cameras with the ability to instantly detect potential hazards and high-risk activities, ensuring real-time safety and operational optimization.
Founder: Martin Mao, Rob Skillington
Uber Role: Engineering Manager, Staff Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $342.5M
Investors: Founders Fund
Stage: Series C
Chronosphere stands as the exclusive observability platform that empowers users to regain control over their operations, effectively managing expansive data growth and the complexities of cloud-native environments.
Founder: Jacklyn Rome
Uber Role: Express POOL Team Lead
Capital Raised: $12.7M
Investors: Citi Ventures
Stage: Series A
Onward is a fintech platform specifically developed to assist co-parents in efficiently tracking and managing shared expenses for their children.
Founder: Robert Phillips
Uber Role: Director Marketplace Optimization Data Sciences
Capital Raised: $50M
Investors: Bain Capital Ventures
Stage: Series C
Nomis, headquartered in Silicon Valley, leverages data, AI, and cloud automation to deliver industry-leading solutions.
Founder: Prithvi Rai
Uber Role: Senior Director of Engineering & Head of Global Security (ex US)
Capital Raised: $18M
Investors: Vulcan Capital
Stage: Series A
Borneo is a cutting-edge platform designed for hyper-growth businesses to monitor and safeguard data security and privacy in real-time.
Founder: Benedetta Arese Lucini
Uber Role: General Manager
Capital Raised: $11.2M
Investors: b-ventures
Stage: Series A
Oval helps digital natives to manage their personal finances and acquire healthy financial habits all in one intuitive app.
Founder: Emeka Ajene
Uber Role: Sr. Manager, Nigeria Operations & Business Development
Capital Raised: $11.7M
Investors: Momentum VC
Stage: Series A
Gozem offers on-demand transportation, delivery, and cashless payment solutions through a single app.
Founder: Steven Hong
Uber Role: Strategy / Operations
Capital Raised: $45.4M
Investors: NEA
Stage: Series C
Kumu Networks, a pioneering company, is transforming wireless system architecture with its full-duplex wireless design.
Founder: Antonia Marino
Uber Role: Senior Regional Operations Manager
Capital Raised: $32.7M
Investors: Portage Ventures
Stage: Seed
Kontempo is a prominent B2B payments platform catering to Mexico's industrial sector.
Founder: Don Burnette
Uber Role: Software Technical Lead
Capital Raised: $244.9M
Investors: CRV
Stage: Series B
Kodiak Robotics is a leading autonomous technology company reshaping the long-haul trucking industry.
Founder: Maxim Fateev, Samar Abbas
Uber Role: Senior Staff Engineer, Staff Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $203.5M
Investors: Sequoia Capital
Stage: Series B
Temporal Technologies’ open-source platform enables companies such as Datadog, Glovo, Netflix, and Snap to build reliable, productive, and easily maintainable services and applications.
Founder: Marlon Gallardo, Tinashe Ruzane
Uber Role: Head of Vehicle Solutions, MEA & Head of Partnerships, Vehicle Solutions, EMEA
Capital Raised: $6.2M
Investors: Kindred Ventures
Stage: Seed
FlexClub, based in Amsterdam, Noord Holland, offers branded flexible payment solutions for rental companies.
Founder: Carly Strife
Uber Role: NYC Operations
Capital Raised: $281.7M
Investors: RRE Ventures
Stage: Public
Barkbox is a monthly subscription service platform that provides dog products.
Founder: Brandon Iles
Uber Role: Sr Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $9.8M
Investors: True Ventures
Stage: Seed
Ampleforth is a digital asset protocol for synthetic commodity money.
Founder: Santit Jirawongkraisorn
Uber Role: Operations Manager
Capital Raised: $2.5B
Investors: Sequoia China
Stage: Series F
Lalamove is an on-demand delivery technology company.
Founder: Kevin Brinig
Uber Role: Head of Product for Core Dispatch and Marketplace Fulfillment
Capital Raised: $9.5M
Investors: Breyer Capital
Stage: Series A
LitLingo is an enterprise platform that allows companies to leverage their own data to reduce risk.
Founder: Mike Shebat
Uber Role: Senior Manager, Global Product
Capital Raised: $23.6M
Investors: General Catalyst
Stage: Series A
Traba helps workers and local businesses to unlock their full productivity and earning potential.
Founder: Henri Moissinac
Uber Role: Head of Consumer Partnerships EMEA
Capital Raised: $210.8M
Investors: FJ Labs
Stage: Series C
Dott is a transportation company that offers shared electrical scooters and bikes.
Founder: Luca Gualco
Uber Role: Head of Expansion
Capital Raised: $65M
Investors: Index Ventures
Stage: Series B
Because is personal care direct-to-consumer company focused on meeting the needs of older adults.
Founder: Chris Blumenberg, Justin Ho
Uber Role: Head of Map Services, Head of Strategy
Capital Raised: $34M
Investors: Sequoia Capital
Stage: Series B
RideOS offers marketplaces/mapping services for ride-hailing fleets.
Founder: Dan R. Trigub
Uber Role: GM, Head of Uber Health
Capital Raised: $70.3M
Investors: Kleiner Perkins
Stage: Series A
MedArrive is a healthcare logistics platform that connects patients with on-demand medical transportation and care.
Founder: Jake Cooper
Uber Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $20M
Investors: Redpoint
Stage: Series A
Railway’s mission is to build a world where developers ship without friction. They are a platform as a service bringing human-friendly design standards to internet infrastructure to help more great ideas materialize.
Founder: Yu Oppel
Uber Role: Product & Operations, Eater Order Experience & Discovery
Capital Raised: $140M
Investors: a16z
Stage: Series B
Cider is one of the fastest-growing fashion brands today, with a following over 5 million. It was founded in 2020 in Los Angeles.
Founder: Miller Aaron
Uber Role: Business Analytics Intern
Capital Raised: $15M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Series A
The world's first technology solution to bring transparency and consistency to legal cannabis through data and insights.
Founder: Jaemin Jin
Uber Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $83M
Investors: Tiger Global
Stage: Series A
Magic is a developer of SDK that integrates with applications to enable password-less Web3 onboarding and authentication.
Founder: Cate Rung
Uber Role: Growth Marketing Channel Lead
Capital Raised: $18.3M
Investors: Unshackled Ventures
Stage: Series A
Pngme provides financial institutions with a Unified Data API that allows them to develop complete financial profiles of new and existing customers.
Founder: Alex Czarnecki
Uber Role: Head of Enterprise Ops, Uber Eats, U.S. & Canada
Capital Raised: $18.5M
Investors: Fifth Wall Ventures
Stage: Series A
Cottage is solving housing affordability by making it easy to build an Accessory Dwelling Unit.
Founder: Fred Amaral
Uber Role: Head of Business Development, Brazil
Capital Raised: $280M
Investors: Riverwood Capital
Stage: Series C
Dock is a provider of financial technology company that integrates card banking and core banking services.
Founder: Justin Bleuel
Uber Role: Product Manager
Capital Raised: $4M
Investors: Accel
Stage: Seed
Justin is the co-founder of Avenue, an all-in-one tool for scaling ops-heavy companies and improving complex business systems.
Founder: Jerry Liu
Uber Role: Research Scientist
Capital Raised: $8.5M
Investors: Greylock
Stage: Seed
LlamaIndex is a simple, flexible data framework for connecting custom data sources to large language models.
Founder: Bhavya Agarwal, Moyi Dang
Uber Role: Senior Software Engineer, Senior Data Scientist
Capital Raised: $2M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed
Coinfeeds is an API that tracks and aggregates news and social sentiment for crypto enthusiasts.
Founder: Samuel K. Lam
Uber Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $5.5M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed
PermitFlow is a construction permit application and management platform for developers and general contractors.
Founder: Andy Lee
Uber Role: Director & Head of Business & Corporate Development, APAC
Capital Raised: $3M
Investors: Sovereigns Capital
Stage: Seed
Sprout helps companies digitally manage their related tokens, equity and team compensation.
Founder: Artem Germanov
Uber Role: Engineering Leadership
Capital Raised: $3.3M
Investors: Sterling VC
Stage: Pre-Seed
Souq is a company dedicated to supporting player-owned game economies and empowering the next generation of internet users to own and invest in the app economies of the future.
Founder: Peter McKee
Uber Role: Engineering Manager, Self-Driving Rider Experience
Capital Raised: $5.8M
Investors: Ridge Ventures
Stage: Seed
Aeqium is a compensation management platform that makes comp planning fast, data-driven, and collaborative.
Founder: Suyash Kumar
Uber Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $3M
Investors: Techstars
Stage: Seed
Gradient Health is a company that specializes in providing medical image datasets for AI research labs and corporations. Through partnerships with medical data providers worldwide, Gradient Health curates pathologies to support the development of AI products aimed at saving lives.
Founder: Bryce Bennett, Keith Ng
Uber Role: General Manager
Capital Raised: $5.3M
Investors: Red Sea Ventures
Stage: Seed
Solo Technologies, based in Seattle, Washington, addresses the challenges faced by gig workers, offering solutions for optimizing their time, accessing diverse job opportunities, and accessing a comprehensive range of tailored services to enhance their professional journey.
Founder: Diwakar Ganesan
Uber Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $2.5M
Investors: GSR Ventures
Stage: Seed
TuMeke is a technology company dedicated to minimizing workplace injuries. Their risk assessment platform employs computer vision to extract 3D joint positions from 2D cameras, automating ergonomic risk evaluations.
Founder: Claudiu Cioba
Uber Role: Product Designer
Capital Raised: $3M
Investors: Founder Collectivec
Stage: Seed
Videowise is an eCommerce video platform that transforms how brands and retailers leverage videos for increased commerce performance. With end-to-end infrastructure, Videowise enables scalable and optimized video experiences.
Founder: Navneet Kaur, Shivam Sharma
Uber Role: Head of Existing Driver Operations, Business Development
Capital Raised: $3.5M
Investors: Global Founders Capital
Stage: Seed
Yours uses a technology-driven approach to create tailored products based on individual needs.
Founder: Ming Fang, Yifu Diao
Uber Role: Senior Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer II
Capital Raised: $3M
Investors: Kindred Ventures
Stage: Seed
Sperta is a risk decision platform that specializes in assisting financial services and tech companies with automating decisions and effectively managing fraud, credit, and compliance risks.
Founder: Benjamin Chino
Uber Role: Product Ops lead
Capital Raised: $11.8M
Investors: Global Founders Capital
Stage: Seed
Maki is a skill assessment tool to assess and hire talents.
Founder: Dmitry Shevelenko
Uber Role: Director Of Business Development
Capital Raised: $11.1M
Investors: Rosecliff Ventures
Stage: Seed
Tortoise aims to create a seamless and efficient micro mobility experience for urban commuters, improving accessibility and reducing environmental impact.
Founder: Pulkit Chhabra, Utsav Agarwal
Uber Role: Marketing, Partnerships & Rider Operations, Launcher EMEA
Capital Raised: $6M
Investors: Village Global
Stage: Seed
Evenflow specializes in acquiring and expanding eCommerce brands, recognizing the potential for accelerated growth.
Founder: Driss Benamour, Mehdi Lebbar
Uber Role: Head of FinTech Products, Operations Manager
Capital Raised: $14M
Investors: Norwest Venture Partners
Stage: Seed
Exponential is an investment platform that provides a user-friendly experience for discovering, evaluating, and investing in high-yield opportunities in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. By simplifying DeFi investing, Exponential aims to democratize access to lucrative opportunities traditionally limited to banks.
Founder: Ozan Eren Bilgen
Uber Role: Engineering Manager
Capital Raised: $1.8M
Investors: Sequoia Capital
Stage: Seed
Base64.ai revolutionizes document processing with its cloud-based AI service. By eliminating manual data entry, it instantly and accurately extracts text, data, handwriting, photos, and signatures from various documents worldwide.
Founder: Artem Germanov
Uber Role: Engineering Leadership
Capital Raised: $4.5M
Investors: Diagram Ventures
Stage: Seed
Helika is a web3 gaming and NFT analytics platform that aims to support community growth, analyse competitive interactions, and provide access to competitive gaming audiences. Their integrated analytics cover in-game, on-chain, and off-chain data.
Founder: Trisha Bantigue
Uber Role: Global Executive Search (Engineering + Product)
Capital Raised: $9.4M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed
Queenly stands as the leading marketplace and ML-driven search engine in the formalwear industry.
Founder: Yandong Liu
Uber Role: Engineering
Capital Raised: $4M
Investors: Global Founders Capital
Stage: Seed
Connectly.ai is a conversational commerce company that aims to simplify revenue generation for small and medium-sized businesses by transforming customer messages into sales opportunities.
Founder: Kevin Brinig, Laszlo Korsos
Uber Role: Head of Product for Core Dispatch and Marketplace Fulfillment, Co-Founder of Marketplace Org & Founder of Marketplace Data Science
Capital Raised: $6M
Investors: Greylock
Stage: Seed
Headrace is a software company that runs a marketplace catering to the recruitment industry. Their platform simplifies the process for recruiters to establish their own firms, increasing their earning potential. Recruiters benefit from access to top-notch job opportunities, candidates, and sourcing tools, enabling them to enhance their operational efficiency.
Founder: Dzung Dang
Uber Role: General Manager
Capital Raised: $9.4M
Investors: FJ Labs
Stage: Seed
Nano Technologies offers a payroll app designed to provide daily payments to workers in the retail and manufacturing sectors in South East Asia.
Founder: Wyatt Smith
Uber Role: Head of Business Development, Elevate
Capital Raised: $3.3M
Investors: Accel Partners
Stage: Pre-Seed
UpSmith is committed to combating the shortage of skilled workers by creating rewarding career opportunities with competitive salaries.
Founder: Jonathan Rat
Uber Role: Senior Product Manager - Payments
Capital Raised: $10M
Investors: CRV
Stage: Seed
Archy offers dental software with an all-in-one practice management solution. Founded by former Uber colleagues, Archy addresses security vulnerabilities and high costs.
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