The Pinterest Mafia

ivelina

Published

October 10, 2024

Company "mafias" are all the rage, and we here at PIN love to dig deep into the most influential 'Tech Mafias,' especially since we're huge on democratizing access to startup investing by supporting communities with all the legal and bureaucratic work when it comes to setting up a community investment club.

This week's tech mafia group on the menu is the Pinterest Mafia, which has founded 70 companies so far and raised $845 million in funding. Below we've picked the top companies as ell as the top "rising stars," which are companies in the Seed stage.

If you missed our previous posts, make sure to check the Twitter Mafia, Lyft Mafia, Stripe Mafia, Netflix Mafia, InstaCart Mafia, Dropbox Mafia, Revolut Mafia,Tesla Mafia,Square Mafia, Reddit Mafia, VMware Mafia, Amazon Mafia, SpaceX, Slack Mafia, OpenAI and Google Mafia articles. Investing in fellow coworkers' startups, especially as a community or alumni group, is one of the best ways to get in early on deals as well as support the ideas and ventures of people you love and admire. Who knows what's around the corner in your own network and community!

Companies Covered:

OpenSea
Color
MakersPlace
Fable
Alchemy
Scratch
Kumo AI
Gumroad
Farmshelf
Pace
DigiSure
CoactiveAI
Atlys
Rewatch
Supermove
Fiddler AI
Vivian Health
Graphite
Sei Labs
Copilot
Skio
Afropolitan
Topsort
Betty Labs
Airmart
Pigeon
Queenly
Social Chat
Promoted AI
Treet
Roon
Aesthetic
Enkasa
Block Party
Boom & Bucket
Foxpass
Chroma

OpenSea

Founder: Devin Finzer
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $427.2M
Investors: Foundation Capital
Stage: Series C

Devin is the co-founder and CEO at OpenSea, the first peer-to-peer marketplace for blockchain-based assets and is currently the largest general marketplace for user-owned digital items. The team has backgrounds from Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Palantir, and Stanford.

Color

Founder: Othman Laraki
Pinterest Role: Advisor
Capital Raised: $482M
Investors: General Catalyst
Stage: Series E

Othman is the co-founder and CEO at Color Health which provides the infrastructure to support durable and equitable public health across entire populations.

Fable

Founder: Jason Shellen
Pinterest Role: Product
Capital Raised: $36M
Investors: Tiger Global
Stage: Series A

Jason Shellen is an entrepreneur and product leader known for co-founding Google Reader (retired), Boxer (acquired by VMWare) and Brizzly (acquired by Aol, repurchased in 2018). He co-founded Fable, which curates stories for a mobile-first experience that will allow you to read and share with private groups.

Alchemy

Founder: Joseph Lau
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $563.9M
Investors: Coatue Management
Stage: Series C

Joseph is the co-founder and CTO at Alchemy. Alchemy powers the core infrastructure for leading blockchain companies and enterprises around the globe, enabling them to build better products and user experiences through next-generation blockchain infrastructure and developer tools.

Scratch

Founder: Chris Walters, Sameh Elamawy
Pinterest Role: Tech Lead/Engineering Manager, Product Manager
Capital Raised: $17.3M
Investors: Index Ventures
Stage: Series A

Sameh is the CEO and Chris is the CTO and co-founder at Scratch. Scratch has reimagined loan servicing to help borrowers understand, manage, and pay back their loans.

Kumo AI

Founder: Wang Dong, Jure Leskovec, Vanja Josifovski
Pinterest Role: Staff Engineer, Chief Scientist, CTO
Capital Raised: $36.5M
Investors: Sequoia Capital
Stage: Series B

Vanja and Jure are the co-founders, while Wang is the founding member at Kumo.io which is democratizing AI on the Modern Data Stack.

Gumroad

Founder: Sahil Lavingia
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer and Designer
Capital Raised: $16.1M
Investors: First Round Capital
Stage: Series B

Sahil is the founder and CEO of Gumroad which enables creatives to sell directly to their audience.

Farmshelf

Founder: Andrew Shearer
Pinterest Role: Partner Manager, Growth
Capital Raised: $10.8M
Investors: SOSV
Stage: Series A

Andrew is the CEO and founder of Farmshelf which makes it possible for anyone to grow food where they live, work and eat by providing the hardware and expertise.

Pace

Founder: Cat Lee, Jack Chou
Pinterest Role: Head of Growth, Partner Marketing, Head of Product
Capital Raised: $14.9M
Investors: Sequoia Capital
Stage: Series A

Cat is the co-founder and COO at Pace while Jack is the co-founder and CEO at Pace. Pace is where hundreds of small groups find human connection on the internet every week.

MakersPlace

Founder: Daniel Chu, Yash Nelapati
Pinterest Role: Head of Activation Engineering, First Employee
Capital Raised: $32M
Investors: Bessemer Venture Partners
Stage: Series A

Daniel is the co-founder and Executive Chairman at MakersPlace, an NFT marketplace to buy and sell authentic and rare digital art, guaranteed by blockchain technology.

Atlys

Founder: Mohak Nahta
Pinterest Role: Engineer
Capital Raised: $16.3M
Investors: Sequoia Capital
Stage: Series A

Mohak is the CEO and founder at Atlys, a visa platform.

DigiSure

Founder: Mike Shim
Pinterest Role: Advisor
Capital Raised: $13.1M
Investors: Alumni Ventures
Stage: Seed

Mike is the CEO and co-founder at DigiSure. DigiSure delivers Protection-as-a-Service to enable companies to take control of their own insurance to provide a better customer experience, control their losses and margins, and keep their customers safe.

Coactive AI

Founder: Cody Coleman
Pinterest Role: Data Science Consultant
Capital Raised: $14M
Investors: a16z
Stage: Series A

Cody is the CEO and co-founder at Coactive AI which is empowering data practitioners and data-driven teams to unlock insights in unstructured image and video data.

Rewatch

Founder: Connor Sears
Pinterest Role: Product Designer
Capital Raised: $22M
Investors: Haystack
Stage: Series A

Connor is the founder at Rewatch which helps teams work better, together, with video. Record and share your meetings, knowledge, and work in a collaborative video HQ.

Supermove

Founder: Wonjun Jeong
Pinterest Role: Senior Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $18M
Investors: Founders Fund
Stage: Series A

Wonjun is the CEO and founder at Supermove which empowers moving businesses to go paperless - automating timesheets, job forms, contracts, and operations.

Fiddler AI

Founder: Krishna Gade
Pinterest Role: Head of Data Engineering
Capital Raised: $45.2M
Investors: Bloomberg Beta
Stage: Series B

Krishna is the founder and CEO at Fiddler. Fiddler is the first Explainable Monitoring solution for production AI systems. Our aim is to build trust into AI by fully automating the monitoring and explainability of AI models in production.

Vivian Health

Founder: Eric Conner
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $60M
Investors: Collaborative Fund
Stage: Series A

Eric is the CTO and co-founder at Vivian Health. Vivian Health is the largest transparent marketplace for healthcare hiring. Their mission is to empower every healthcare professional to find their perfect job opportunity, faster and easier than ever before.

Graphite

Founder: Tomas Reimers
Pinterest Role: Software Development Intern
Capital Raised: $20M
Investors: a16z
Stage: Series A

Tomas is the co-founder at Graphite. Graphite is an open source CLI and a code review dashboard. Tomas has also worked as a Software Engineer at Facebook.

Sei Labs

Founder: Jayendra Jog
Pinterest Role: KPCB Engineering Fellow and Software Engineering Intern
Capital Raised: $35M
Investors: Coinbase Ventures
Stage: Series A

Jayendra is the co-founder at Sei Labs. Sei Labs is one of the main contributors to the Sei blockchain. Sei is the decentralized NASDAQ, opening up an entirely new design space for DeFi.

Copilot

Founder: Neil Raina
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $10M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Series A

Neil is the Cofounder and CTO at Copilot. Copilot is creating the all-in-one platform to help service businesses start, run, and grow.

Rising Stars

Skio

Founder: Kennan Davison
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer, Growth
Capital Raised: $7.4M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed

Kennan is the founder and CEO at Skio. Skio helps brands on Shopify sell subscriptions.

Afropolitan

Founder: Chika Uwazie
Pinterest Role: Senior Technical Recruiter, Mobile
Capital Raised: $2.1M
Investors: Elizabeth Yin
Stage: Pre-Seed

Chika is the co-founder of Afropolitan DAO. Afropolitan is building a Pan-African Network State to help one billion Africans live their most abundant lives. A serial entrepreneur that has been in the tech ecosystem for ten years as the CEO of Talentbase.

‍Betty Labs

Founder: Howard Akumiah
Pinterest Role: Product Manager
Capital Raised: $9.3M
Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners
Stage: Seed

Howard is the founder and CEO at Betty Labs which is a forward-leaning team focused on creating the next generation of interactive live sports experiences.

Topsort

Founder: Michael Ostrovsky
Pinterest Role: Advisor (Marketplace and Auction Design)
Capital Raised: $8.5M
Investors: FJ Labs
Stage: Seed

Michael is the Professor of Economics at Stanford GSB and co-founder at Topsort.

Queenly

Founder: Kathy Zhou
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $9.4M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed

Kathy is the CTO and co-founder at Queenly which is a marketplace and search engine for the formalwear industry. She has also been in the Forbes 30 under 30 list.

Airmart

Founder: Leo Liu
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $8.2M
Investors: a16z
Stage: Seed

Leo is the founder and CEO at Airmart. Airmart provides a social commerce platform enabling merchants to quickly create an online shop and sell their products.

Pigeon

Founder: Brian Bristol
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $2.9M
Investors: Sovereigns Capital
Stage: Seed

Brian is the founder and CEO at Pigeon, which is an online platform that allows anyone to create and manage loans with their friends and family.

Social Chat

Founder: Frost Li
Pinterest Role: Advisor
Capital Raised: $6.2M
Investors: Race Capital
Stage: Seed

Frost is the founder at Social Chat which provides the social commerce solution to e-commerce stores giving brands the ability to run live video shopping, simulating the in-person shopping experience for customers.

Promoted AI

Founder: Andrew Yates, Dan Hill
Pinterest Role: Engineering Manager, Engineer & Manager
Capital Raised: $8M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed

Dan is the co-founder and CTO at Promoted AI and Andrew is the co-founder and CEO. Promoted unifies organic search, promotions, and ads in one optimized system for marketplaces. They sort people’s marketplace search and promote the best listings at the top to increase revenue.

Treet

Founder: Sonia Yang
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer Intern
Capital Raised: $6.4M
Investors: BBG Ventures
Stage: Seed

Sonia is the co-founder at Treet. Treet helps fashion brands become more circular and control the secondhand market for the items they produce by launching their own fully-branded peer-to-peer resale marketplace.

Roon

Founder: Vikram B., Arun Ranganathan
Pinterest Role: Head of Partnerships, Head of Partner Engineering
Capital Raised: $7.5M
Investors: Sequoia Capital
Stage: Seed

Vikram and Arun are the co-founders at Roon, which aspires to be the place where all people experiencing challenging health conditions go to find information, community and support.

Aesthetic

Founder: Andrew Look, John Milinovich
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer, Senior Product Manager
Capital Raised: $3.1M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Pre-Seed

Andrew is the co-founder and CPO at Aesthetic while John is the CEO and co-founder. Aesthetic is an AI-powered creative apprentice.

Enkasa

Founder: Joanne Bradford, Tram Nguyen
Pinterest Role: Head of Global Partnerships, Head of Corporate Strategy
Capital Raised: $3M
Investors: Greycroft
Stage: Seed

Joanne and Tram are the co-founders of Enkasa. Enkasa is a real estate technology platform that helps homebuyers better evaluate homes.

Block Party

Founder: Tracy Chou
Pinterest Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $4.8M
Investors: Stellation Capital
Stage: Seed

Tracy Chou is an entrepreneur and software engineer known for her work advocating for diversity and inclusion in tech. She is currently the founder and CEO of Block Party, which builds tools for online safety and anti-harassment.

Boom & Bucket

Founder: Aaron Kline
Pinterest Role: Partner Operations Manager
Capital Raised: $5.5M
Investors: 8VC
Stage: Seed

Aaron is the co-Founder and COO at Boom & Bucket. He is an experienced operational leader who’s passionate about new product introduction, pioneering new markets, and building high performance teams.

Foxpass

Founder: Aren Sandersen
Pinterest Role: Head of Technical Operations
Capital Raised: $1.4M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed

Aren founded Foxpass which focuses on creating enterprise-grade security.

Chroma

Founder: Andreas Pihlström
Pinterest Role: Advisor
Capital Raised: $7M
Investors: Biz Stone
Stage: Seed

Andreas is the founder at Chroma which is the future sound of entertainment. He has also been the founder of Suprb which was focused on Creative Direction / Design Advising for Pinterest.