Cal AI is the AI calorie counting app startup built by two high school teenagers that soared to over 15 million downloads and over $30 million in annual revenue in under two years, MyFitnessPal tells TechCrunch.
Allen Wang and Eric Liu, two UC Berkeley dropouts, think they can help college students find love using AI. Their dating startup, Ditto, leverages AI to match people based on the data users input into the service. It then plans the date for them. "We're bringing people back to in-real-life interactions," Wang, 23, told Business Insider. After users make a profile, they directly message Ditto's AI chatbot via text- no app required - about their type and dating preferences. On Wednesdays, users get a text about a potential match. After each date, Ditto follows up for feedback and uses that information as additional data for future matches.
Founded by experienced entrepreneurs who've built and scaled products before, we move fast and focus on impact over hype. The Role We're looking for a working student to join us as a UI/UX Designer. You'll work directly with the founders on our product-shaping how users interact with our chatbot and AI agents. This means designing novel user flows for interactions that don't have established playbooks yet. You'll have real ownership, high expectations, and see your work in production.
The duo, both 31, met in 2018 and became inseparable while working at GuavaPass, a fitness app. Yiong was laid off when Guavapass was acquired by ClassPass in 2019. Two years later, during the pandemic, Chng was laid off from her marketing job. The duo reunited to launch an athleisure brand,then called Butter, despite having no experience in fashion or entrepreneurship.
When I was younger, I started an e-commerce grip socks brand called Alpha Grips. It failed, but that's what got me interested in business. I was 12. A lot of kids' first businesses is always something to do with e-commerce, like drop-shipping or clothing brands. Social media does saturate you with that "get rich quick" idea with drop-shipping or crypto. Although 90% of the time it's a scam, it still ignites an interest.
"His Vespa had gotten stolen and we just kinda had this crazy idea ... if we were to design one for the future that was all-electric, had the best technology, what would it look like? What would it feel like?" Cohen explained. As I stood beside P1, a $10,000 electric seated scooter, and Olto, a $3,495 bike-lane legal class 2 e-bike, that question had been answered. The brothers' company started shipping the P1 to customers in October and expects to deliver Olto in early 2026.
The Helsingborg-based platform connects students with internships. Designed to streamline recruitment, the platform helps businesses quickly find qualified interns who match their needs, thanks to detailed student profiles that provide clear insights into each candidate's skills. For students, it's an easy way to discover opportunities and connect with potential employers.
For the last year and a half, two hacked white Tesla Model 3 sedans each loaded with five extra cameras and one palm-sized supercomputer have quietly cruised around San Francisco. In a city and era swarming with questions about the capabilities and limits of artificial intelligence, the startup behind the modified Teslas is trying to answer what amounts to a simple question: How quickly can a company build autonomous vehicle software today?
"I started to get emails from all kinds of people asking if I could glaze pieces of pottery with their loved ones' remains," he told the WSJ. Unfortunately, dealing with the flood of requests helped Crowe realize that pottery wasn't a great avenue for scaling a business, as it only uses a fraction of a person's dusty leftovers. He ended up revamping his enterprise, coming up with Parting Stones' "solidification service," which begins at $1,195 for pets and $2,495 for humans.
"We stopped Yara because we realized we were building in an impossible space. AI can be wonderful for everyday stress, sleep troubles, or processing a difficult conversation," he wrote on LinkedIn. "But the moment someone truly vulnerable reaches out-someone in crisis, someone with deep trauma, someone contemplating ending their life-AI becomes dangerous. Not just inadequate. Dangerous." In a reply to one commenter, he added, "the risks kept me up all night."
I've always wanted to live in San Francisco. It's the beating pulse of AI, and there are so many insanely ambitious and talented people to be surrounded by. You can literally walk into a coffee shop and end up in a two-hour deep dive conversation about AI agents or someone's YC application. Everyone's dreaming big, and you can feel that optimism in the air. It's a nice place to build a startup.
"Our users are very young," Pei said on Alex Heath's Access podcast this week. "It's pretty much impossible to be popular among everybody in the world at the very beginning, so we got to pick a lane." Pei said the company has found that its products resonate best with younger consumers who are motivated by a desire to "be different" and find their "own identity" in the devices they choose.
Andrew Lissimore has been running the audio apparel site Headphones.com for nearly a decade now. While audiophiles have a high affinity towards their gear and want to try out new gadgets, Lissimore wasn't satisfied with continuously spending money on platforms like Meta and Google to acquire new customers; he wanted to find a way to better retain the customers he already had.
A startup called Orion is ready to take on America's sleep loss epidemic with a new, AI-enabled mattress cover that can adjust its temperature throughout the night to maximize comfort and rest. Cofounder and CEO Harry Gestetner previously cofounded the startup Fanfix, which helped Gen Z content creators build paid subscription programs. After the company sold to SuperOrdinary for a reported $65 million, Gestetner says he became interested in sleep and its well-documented links to health and longevity.
The whole thing works like this: exhausted job seekers upload their résumé and format their personal info. Once up and running, they're presented with various gigs one by one, which they can swipe left to reject, or right to apply - just like a dating app. When a user swipes right, Sorce's "AI agent" navigates to the company's website and applies on their behalf.
GAIA is revolutionising the legal industry with AI that automates legal work and empowers legal professionals to work more efficiently and effectively. We're building the future of legal technology, and we are looking for a driven, versatile person to help accelerate our growth. The Role We're looking for a determined Intern to work directly with our Head of Sales, Erika Root, to be at the forefront of driving our growth.
We're building NexDash into Europe's first Neo-Carrier: electrified, AI-orchestrated, and soon autonomous. 🚛⚡ To keep pace with our growth, we're looking for a strong Operations & Finance Associate who acts as the founder's right hand and makes sure everything runs smoothly. Your responsibilities: Admin: build organization & structure across the company Finance: basic controlling, payments, investor reporting HR: contracts, onboarding, culture building Office management: keep the daily machine running
Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni turned their Stanford dorm room into a startup lab. It's a time-honored tradition at Stanford, a rite of passage many tech bigwigs have undertaken. Gates and Kianni started as randomly assigned roommates, but soon bonded over their shared love of activism and business. And, like many aspiring Stanford founders before them, they were looking for an idea-pinning up articles in their kitchen, calling potential customers from their floors, and scribbling on a whiteboard.
With Supercal's group scheduling feature, you can email a group of people and CC the service's AI, which reads everyone's calendars, finds a time that works for all, books the meeting, and replies to the email thread with the details. Supercal lets you sync up to six calendars, so you can keep work, personal, and other schedules in one place.
In the summer of 2016, I was 21, living in New York City, and working as an intern for a private-capital research firm. One weekend, I went to the Jersey shore with a group of friends. I'm from Seattle, so I'm not used to seeing airplanes flying banners every couple of minutes. They looked like they were from the 1940s. They were noisy and emitting a lot of smoke.
Starting a business from scratch may feel overwhelming, but the journey becomes easier with clear steps. Begin by finding a problem to solve and making sure there's real demand for your idea. Create a simple plan that covers your goals, budget, and strategy. Secure the right funding, complete the legal formalities, and focus on building a strong brand presence. Start small, test your product or service, and improve based on feedback. Use marketing to reach your audience and grow steadily.
