Neo deploys $12.5 million into 20 new startups

Hi Neo Family,

We’re responding to the market nosedive by doubling down on early-stage startups. We’ve picked 20 new companies to fund for Neo Accelerator 2022. 

More than half the CEOs we chose are women or under-represented minorities. Our acceptance rate was 3.5% for new applications, with several spots earned by existing Neo Scholars. We feel privileged and grateful to select from an exceptional pool of hundreds of talented teams.

As part of our 5-month program, each startup will receive $625K of investment, 5 weeks of all-inclusive retreats with mentors, a share of each other’s companies, and more.

Making the Accelerator Relevant Again

Since 2005, Silicon Valley has been shaped and dominated by Y Combinator, a legendary firm that pioneered one of the most impactful ideas of the 21st century: the startup accelerator. YC spawned many of the biggest companies of the past decade and inspired many imitators.

The world is different in 2022. The strongest tech founders no longer care for today’s accelerators. They face new challenges and need new solutions.

We took on the task of making the accelerator relevant to them again. We redefined the essence of a startup accelerator with an in-person residential campus; a demo day focused on hiring; and a more generous funding structure than any other.

The resulting press coverage has already set the tone for a changing of the guard:

Neo @neo

"Nobody has ever been able to chip away at YC’s position as the first-choice for elite founders looking to join an accelerator. Partovi may have a shot." -- @EricNewcomer

newcomer.coAli Partovi Wants to Beat the Old YCThe storied angel investor wants to reinvent the elite startup accelerator

We’re proud to back a cohort of startups that either didn’t consider any other accelerators, or rejected them when accepted to Neo. Our work isn’t over, and we’ll keep iterating to ensure that Neo remains the top choice for technical founders. 

Meet our Founders

Chord, by Sidney Hough & Kevin Liu from Stanford, is your very own AI product research assistant.

Chestr, by Besart Copa & Isaac Fung from Georgetown & U. Michigan, is a social wishlist for all online stores. 

Constellation, by Stanford engineers Matthew Katz & Parker Jou, helps blockchain developers build applications at scale and has also raised from Sequoia Capital.

Hopscotch, by ex-Google APM Abdel Mahmoud & second-time founder Zahid Mahmood, lets you hop any line anywhere with just a QR code.

Kangaroo, founded by former Wefunder technical lead and University of Toronto student Olivia Li, is is changing how people invest by giving retail investors access to top private startups.

Martingale, by Tejal Patwardhan from Harvard & Katy Shi from Stanford, is a modeling layer for genomics.

Mind & Match, by recent Stanford computer science graduate student Aditi Gaur and Stanford MBA Megan Rozanski, makes finding a therapist as easy as matching on a dating app.

Moment, by former Citadel quant traders Dylan Parker & Dean Hathout and former McKinsey consultant Ammer Soliman, powers fixed income investing for fintechs looking to offer yield to their users.

Momento, by brothers Daniel Salib from Tesla & David Salib from Lyft, makes listening to podcasts social, starting with making it easy to save and share any moment. 

Protego, by ex-Meta engineers Michael Dworsky and Mason Silber, is a no-code platform for Trust & Safety that enables user-generated content platforms to find and remove harmful content at scale.

Photizo, by Ebenezer Obiri, Philemon Armah & Dominic Asare Mensah, is a housing and real estate marketplace for Africa that has already leased or sold 500 homes in Ghana.

Sixc, founded by USC computer science grad Ben Brooks, is a carbon accounting tool for online retailers.

Vivid, by recent Princeton grads and engineers Aryaman Khandelwal, Alberto Rigail, and Jorge Zreik, makes front-end development effortless with an in-browser visual editor to modify your code.

Yuzu Health, by project fiend Ryan Lee, former Bain consultant Max Kauderer & veteran startup engineer Russell Pekala, provides health plan administration for startups.

Other founders include Alexander Wang, Arjun Mishra, Calvin Giroud, Evan Mays, Gerardo Ascencio, John Kim, Jose Antonio Murillo, Kevin Hu, Kushagro Bhattacharjee, Santiago Buenahora and Shubhrakanti Ganguly, Tae Hyoung Jo. There are a couple more startups whose founders preferred not to be announced yet (coincidentally all female founders), and we can’t wait to share them with you later.

Please join us in welcoming these 20 awesome startups into the Neo Community!