Celebrating the rising changemakers shaping the future of AI.
Applications open October 1. Get first access.
Built for signal
Not a popularity contest. Not a generic award. The AI List is a curated selection of founders building AI-native companies with strong product, clear execution, and long-term potential. We recognize the ones with real traction and the vision to define what comes next.
Sound like you — or someone you know?
Past
Honorees
In the months since being named to The AI List, this group has shipped into production, closed enterprise deals, advanced research, and earned a place in conversations that matter — with customers, peers, and policymakers alike. Here are some of last year’s success stories:
Chris Andrew
Co-Founder/CEO, Scrunch AI
Founder sold his AI analytics startup to Sitecore for $225 million
Amrita Bhasin
Co-Founder/CEO, Sotira
Named Forbes 30 Under 30, SF Business Times 40 Under 40 and selected for OpenAI's ChatGPT Futures program
Uday Kiran Chaka
Founder, Sentry AI
AI security startup tripled revenue and deployed at Tesla, stopping all reported theft and intrusion
Eshani Mehta
Founder, Lumari
Took her supply chain AI platform through Y Combinator and onto a Times Square billboard
João Moura
CEO, CrewAI
Has enterprise deployments running across organizations including Pepsico, DocuSign, and the U.S. Department of Defense
Neda Mansoorian
Founder/CEO, Fullproof.ai
Built and deployed the first real-time AI witness examination tool, now used in depositions at Fortune 500 legal departments
Luis Poggi
Co-Founder/CEO, HouseWhisper AI
Named GeekWire CEO of the Year while scaling his AI real estate platform to 7,000+ agents
Jonathan Bean
CEO, Material Nexus
Released what the team calls the most accurate physics-based AI model ever built for magnetic materials
Aditya Grover
Co-founder, Inception
Inception's Mercury 2 ranked first on Artificial Analysis's model recommender for speed and intelligence
Ankur Patel
Founder/CEO, Multimodal
AI agents for credit unions cut loan processing costs by 80% and compressed a 3-minute workflow to 51 seconds
Caroline Clark
CEO, Arcade Software
Video publish rate grew 35x as the team pushed past its own quality benchmarks
Gou Rao
Co-founder/CEO, NeuBird AI
Built an AI site reliability agent now trusted to decide which pull requests ship to production
Chris Andrew
Co-Founder/CEO, Scrunch AI
Founder sold his AI analytics startup to Sitecore for $225 million
Amrita Bhasin
Co-Founder/CEO, Sotira
Named Forbes 30 Under 30, SF Business Times 40 Under 40 and selected for OpenAI's ChatGPT Futures program
Uday Kiran Chaka
Founder, Sentry AI
AI security startup tripled revenue and deployed at Tesla, stopping all reported theft and intrusion
Eshani Mehta
Founder, Lumari
Took her supply chain AI platform through Y Combinator and onto a Times Square billboard
João Moura
CEO, CrewAI
Has enterprise deployments running across organizations including PepsiCo, DocuSign, and the U.S. Department of Defense
Neda Mansoorian
Founder/CEO, Fullproof.ai
Built and deployed the first real-time AI witness examination tool, now used in depositions at Fortune 500 legal departments
Luis Poggi
Co-Founder/CEO, HouseWhisper AI
Named GeekWire CEO of the Year while scaling his AI real estate platform to 7,000+ agents
Jonathan Bean
CEO, Material Nexus
Released what the team calls the most accurate physics-based AI model ever built for magnetic materials
The 2025 Judges
We’re grateful to our esteemed panel of judges — respected leaders and builders whose work serves as a compass for the future of AI. Their time, insight, and commitment will help shape this list and spotlight the emerging voices driving the field forward.
-
Dr. Fei-Fei Li
Professor, Stanford AI
-
Dustin Moskovitz
Co-founder, Asana, Facebook
-
Emily Chang
Host/Producer, Bloomberg
-
Sridhar Ramaswamy
CEO, Snowflake
-
Rahul Vohra
Founder/CEO, Superhuman
-
Armon Dadgar
Co-founder/CTO, HashiCorp (IBM)
-
Ion Stoica
Co-founder, Anyscale/Databricks
-
May Habib
Co-founder/CEO, Writer
-
Darren Mowry
VP, Google Cloud Global Startups
-
Navin Chaddha
Managing Partner, Mayfield
-
Derek Andersen
Co-founder/CEO, Startup Grind
-
Howard G. Wright
VP, Startup Ecosystem, NVIDIA
-
Nicholas Thompson
CEO, The Atlantic
-
Stefano Ermon
CEO, Inception Labs; Stanford
-
Asha Sharma
Corporate VP/Head of Product, Microsoft AI
Pushing the World Forward
The AI List will spotlight change makers and rising stars: founders, builders, researchers, industry leaders, media voices, policymakers, startups and more. Let’s recognize the people behind the work that has potential for outsized future impact, technical depth, and reflects a values-driven approach to building in AI.
The Honorees
The Honorees
Everything you want to know about
-
The AI List has a new home. The Mayfield | Divot AI List is becoming the Mayfield | Startup Grind AI List.
As we’ve built this year’s List, we’ve focused increasingly on the founders and builders creating the next generation of AI companies — which makes Startup Grind, and our global founder community, the natural home for it. -
The List focuses on emerging founders building AI-native companies, along with a limited number of exceptional builders. Bootstrapped and angel-backed companies are eligible, and companies may have raised up to one institutional round. Accelerator funding does not count toward this limit.
-
Complete the application form between October 1 and November 20, 2026. You can submit your own information or recommend someone whose work should be considered.
-
Yes. Eligible founders can apply directly. You do not need an invitation or nomination to be considered.
-
Candidates are identified through applications, nominations, and proactive sourcing. Startup Grind and Mayfield review the full pool and create a shortlist for the judges. The final 50 honorees are selected based on the strength of their work and future potential.
-
Honorees will be recognized and featured across Mayfield, Divot, and Startup Grind through dedicated content and ongoing promotion. Additional opportunities will be shared directly with those selected.
-
For questions about the application or selection process, contact ai-list@startupgrind.com
