NextGen 40 Under 40: Innovation & Technology [2020]

CSQ presents its second-annual “40 under 40” of the most innovative founders and CEOs in Los Angeles and New York.

CSQ presents its second-annual “40 under 40” of the most innovative founders and CEOs in Los Angeles and New York. Forward thinking, breaking the mold, and driven to succeed, this list of talent is disrupting industries from cannabis and private clubs to aerospace and fitness. Each of these leaders was selected through an editorial process that included a call for nominations, market research, and CSQ community outreach. Using a system to grade innovations within industry, current market connectivity, future business potential, and previous entrepreneurial wins, a selection committee of visionary entrepreneurs and experts helped make our final selections.

Name Ted Bailey
Age 38
Title Founder, Chairman, and CEO
Company Dataminr
Industry Software
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $577M
Business Mission The leading real-time AI platform for event and risk detection. Relied on by hundreds of private and public sector organizations—with a global user base spanning more than 75 countries—Dataminr delivers the earliest alerts on high-impact events and emerging risks so that clients can know critical information first, respond with confidence, and manage crises more effectively.

Name Adam Bierman
Age 38
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company MedMen
Industry Cannabis
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $363M
Business Mission To define the next-generation discovery platform for cannabis and all its benefits.

Name Anthony Casalena
Age 37
Title Founder and CEO
Company Squarespace
Industry Web Design
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $278.5M
Business Mission Empowers people and brands to cultivate sophisticated online presences with an all-in-one, user-friendly web design platform that hosts websites, online stores, and portfolios.

Name Tom Cortese
Age 39
Title Co-founder and COO
Company Peloton
Industry Fitness
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $994.7M
Business Mission To bring the look and feel of a fitness club to the home through community-powered technology, and to offer flexible access to livestream fitness classes for busy families. The Peloton treadmill, bike, and app offer thousands of classes across categories such as indoor cycling, running, walking, strength, stretching, cardio, yoga and meditation, with training programs ranging from 5 to 90 minutes.

Name Tim Ellis
Age 29
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company Relativity Space
Industry Aerospace  
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $185.7M
Business Mission To revolutionize aerospace travel by manufacturing rockets with 3D printing technology. Relativity Space believes that by innovating a new automated system of building rockets, humanity will be able to engage in interplanetary experiences.

Name Joseph Furnari
Age 38
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company HyreCar
Industry Carsharing
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $30M
Business Mission The HyreCar platform was created to embolden entrepreneurship by levering technology to become the leader in automotive asset sharing.

Name Anda Gansca
Age 31
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company Knotch
Industry Marketing
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $34M
Business Mission The independent content intelligence platform helps marketers to track and measure the effectiveness of their digital content in real time. Through cross-platform comparisons, Knotch enables CMOs and their teams to improve their content-marketing strategy by providing data signals on the content types, themes, and distribution channels that are receiving the best response.

Name Audrey Gelman
Age 32
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company The Wing
Industry Coworking
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $117.5M
Business Mission With locations currently in Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., The Wing creates coworking spaces for women to work and connect with each other in a supportive and professional environment.

Name Georgina Gooley
Age 33
Title Co-founder and Co-CEO
Company Billie, Inc
Industry Retail
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $35M
Business Mission Billie provides women with quality shaving supplies and premium body-care products designed to make a daily routine a little more delightful—and a lot more affordable.

Name Nicholas R. Green
Age 35
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company Thrive Market
Industry Retail
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $161.9M
Business Mission An online marketplace with a mission to make healthy foods, vitamins, beauty products, and home goods affordable and accessible to everyone. The shopping club has over 2,500 high-quality products which can be delivered directly to consumers’ doors.

Name Jack Groetzinger
Age 35
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company SeatGeek
Industry Entertainment
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $160M
Business Mission A ticket search engine that lets users discover ticket listings for upcoming sports and entertainment events, finding the best deals and generating recommendations based on user preferences.

Name Matthew Haag
Age 27
Title Founder and CEO
Company 100 Thieves
Industry eSports
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $60M
Business Mission A lifestyle brand and gaming organization targeted to the eSport athletic community.

Name Severin Hacker
Age 36
Title Co-founder and CTO
Company Duolingo
Industry Education
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $138.5M
Business Mission The most popular language-learning platform worldwide, with over 300M total learners. Duolingo’s mission is to make education free and accessible to everyone, offering 94 total courses across 38 distinct languages, from the world’s most-spoken languages to endangered languages like Hawaiian, Navajo and Scottish Gaelic. Hacker is in charge of the technology that powers Duolingo’s mission to provide free access to education. He is the internal champion of innovation, ensuring that Duolingo leverages the latest advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to scale and personalize language-learning. More than 300M people learn languages on Duolingo. Duolingo’s mission is to make language education free and accessible to all.

Name Oisin Hanrahan
Age 36
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company Handy
Industry Cleaning services
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $110.7M
Business Mission An on-demand platform and gig marketplace connecting people in need of household services with independent, pre-screened professionals in fixed-price gig categories such as home cleaning, product installation, furniture assembly and handyman services. Founded in 2012, Handy was created based on the belief that the way consumers buy household services is broken, and that there has to be a better experience for both consumers and pros. For professionals, the Handy platform makes it possible to maintain a flexible schedule with meaningful income opportunities. Handy is trusted by the world’s top retail brands and is available nationwide.

Name Joshua Held
Age 34
Title Founder and CEO
Company Chemistry Holdings
Industry Biotechnology 
Location L.A.
Total Recent Exits $115M and $160M
Business Mission An intellectual property holding company and manufacturer of innovative drug delivery systems.

Name Ryan Hudson
Age 39
Title Co-founder
Company Honey
Industry E-Commerce
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $31.8M
Business Mission A browser extension that saves consumers time and money, Honey automatically finds the best coupons and deals for its 17 mil+ members globally.

Name Jennifer Hyman
Age 39
Title Co-Founder and CEO
Company Rent the Runway
Industry eCommerce
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $541.2M
Business Mission Rent the Runway’s goal is to make women feel confident and empowered every single day through the concept of renting rather than purchasing designer clothing and accessories. Seventy percent of its 1,200 employees are women, and 71 percent are members of a minority group.

Name Charlie Javice
Age 27
Title Founder and CEO
Company FRANK
Industry Education
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $15.7M
Business Mission The leading platform connecting students to financial aid at colleges and programs they will love: FRANK’s mission is to make affordable education available to all. In just over two years, the company has helped more than 350,000 students receive $7B in financial aid, for free.

Name Samy Kamkar
Age 34
Title Co-founder and Chief Security Officer
Company Openpath
Industry Security
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $27M
Business Mission
By combining sleek hardware with cloud-based enterprise software, Openpath enables mobile, hands-free entry using a smartphone that never has to leave your pocket—making system management easier than ever. With strong encryption, modern technology, and a thoughtful, end-to-end user experience, Openpath is the first and only solution to achieve greater than 90 percent mobile adoption without worrying about cards or opening apps.

Name Andy Katz-Mayfield
Age 37
Title Co-founder and Co-CEO
Company Harry’s
Industry eCommerce
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $375.2M
Business Mission Before Harry’s, buying shaving supplies was a really bad customer experience; most razors were hard to access at the drugstore, and the products themselves were overpriced and over-designed. Harry’s saw an opportunity to build a more relatable, more customer-focused experience by rethinking daily grooming experiences for men with its thoughtfully made body, hair, and skincare products.

Name Philip Krim
Age 36
Title Co-Founder and CEO
Company Casper
Industry eCommerce
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $339.7M
Business Mission Casper sells comfortable mattresses directly to consumers, to create the best sleep experience for people and even dogs.

Name Ben Lerer
Age 39
Title
Founder and CEO
Company
Group Nine Media
Industry
Digital Media
Location
N.Y.
Funds Raised
$190M
Business Mission
A digital media company consisting of four distinct brands: Thrillist, a city-by-city guide to restaurants, travel, and nightlife; NowThis, a social media-focused news outlet targeting young adults; The Dodo, a mobile media brand for all things animals; and Seeker, a video forward digital platform for the curious and technology-savvy.

Name Jessica Mah
Age 29
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company inDinero
Industry Accounting
Location L.A.
Estimated Enterprise Value $100M+
Business Mission inDinero is modernizing the way business accounting is done with software that helps users track and manage their finances.

Name Scott Marlette
Age 36
Title Co-founder
Company GoodRx
Industry Health
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $1.5M
Business Mission A marketplace for affordable and convenient healthcare solutions. Its first offering—the GoodRx site and app—delivers transparent information on prescription drug prices directly to consumers. To date, GoodRx has helped more than 10M Americans save more than $15B on prescription drug costs. As of this past year, GoodRx also offers GoodRx Care, a telemedicine service that offers easy treatment, prescriptions and lab tests for routine medical issues. Thus far, the company has saved customers $15B on prescriptions. At GoodRx, he oversaw early technical development of the product and later lead strategic marketing initiatives. After GoodRx, he has remained an active angel investor in Los Angeles with successful exits in companies such as Snapchat and Ring.

Name Jason Meltzer
Age 36
Title Co-founder and Former Chief Dog Officer
Company Wag
Industry Pet Care
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $361.5M
Business Mission Wag is an on-demand dog walking app that provides pet owners with greater flexibility by connecting them with certified and trustworthy dog walkers. Dog parents can follow along the walk using real-time GPS tracking.

Name Krystle Mobayeni
Age 37
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company BentoBox
Industry Food
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $23.6M
Business Mission BentoBox empowers restaurants to succeed with a mobile operations platform that allows managers to design websites, update menus, promote events, track revenue, and analyze traffic.

Name Parker Morse
Age 36
Title Founder and CEO
Company H Code
Industry Digital Media
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $4M
Business Mission H Code better connects brands and advertisers with American Hispanics across all channels. The company reaches this coveted audience at scale through digital and integrated campaigns that bring together targetable data, exclusive inventory, impactful creative, branded content, and more. Their own team is 75 percent Hispanic and understands the importance of their mission. In less than five years, they have achieved enough growth to become the largest Hispanic digital media company in the U.S. Key clients include Disney Theatrical, Toyota, General Mills, Target, Walmart, Delta Air Lines, Chase, Kaiser Permanente, Clorox, Sprint, and USPS.

Name Delane Parnell
Age 27
Title Founder and CEO
Company PlayVS
Industry eSports
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $96M
Business Mission What started as just Parnell in an office is now over 40 talented people working to realize the company’s vision, now a venture-backed software startup building competitive experiences on top of eSports.

Name Carter Reum
Age 38
Title Co-founder
Company M13
Industry Venture Capital
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $175M
Business Mission M13 is a full-service venture engine with offices in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. M13 executes a “founders first” focus to build and scale leading consumer technology companies. The company provides the right people, platform, and partnerships for founding teams to make better decisions and win in their category.

Name Evan Richter
Age 34
Title Co-Founder and Partner
Company Smash Ventures
Industry Venture Capital
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $330M+
Business Mission
Later-stage consumer internet and software venture capital. Accelerating tech company growth through media strategy and execution. The company co-led Epic Games’ $1.25B raise—the largest venture investment in 2018.

Name Jennifer Rubio
Age 32
Title Co-founder and CBO
Company Away
Industry eCommerce
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $181M
Business Mission Initially formed with the vision of creating the perfect suitcase, Away has evolved into a lifestyle brand offering a range of modern travel products designed with minimalism and functionality in mind.

Name Daniel Ruch
Age 38
Title Founder and CEO
Company Rocketrip
Industry Travel
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $32.2M
Business Mission Founded in 2013, Rocketrip is changing the way businesses travel. Employees receive a budget for work trips and are rewarded with compensation bonuses and other perks when they spend less on booking transportation and accommodations.

Name Shivani Siroya
Age 37
Title Founder and CEO
Company Tala
Industry Finance
Location L.A.
Est Annual Revenue $75M
Funds Raised $204.4M
Business Mission Tala is a mobile data-science company that provides financial services such as instant credit scoring and personalized loans to people who have never had a formal credit history.

Name Vanessa Stofenmacher
Age 32
Title
Founder and Creative Director
Company
Vrai
Industry
eCommerce
Location
L.A.
Funds Raised
Not Applicable
Business Mission
Vrai is here to bring new meaning to fine jewelry—rethinking the industry from the ground up. The company believes every decision should be made with intention, from its design to materials to operations, so the consumer can feel good about the jewelry that becomes a part of them. Through quality, transparency, and inclusivity, they’re on a mission to democratize fine jewelry. Stofenmacher participates in all aspects of business development including finance, operations, marketing and product as well as directly leading brand creation including jewelry, website, packaging, voice, graphic design, and art direction. The company was acquired by the Silicon Valley Solar Tech Company, Diamond Foundry, which has been a great achievement.

Name Daina Trout
Age 38
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company Health-Ade
Industry Food and Beverage
Location L.A.
Est Annual Revenue $105M
Funds Raised $60M
Business Mission Health-Ade makes the best-tasting bubbly feel-good beverages you can buy, so you can follow your gut and show the world what you’re made of. The brand was created with $600 in a farmers’ market and a whole lot of grit. Trout cites getting the brand to more than 30,000 stores in less than eight years as her greatest achievement. More recently, securing $20M in investment from the largest beverage company and arguably best brand in the world, Coca-Cola, was a very important milestone as well.

Name Felix Van de Maele
Age 35
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company Collibra
Industry Data Intelligence
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $234M
Business Mission Collibra connects the right data, insights, and algorithms for all data citizens. Collibra believes that when data citizens have access to the data they need, businesses can be empowered to innovate and collaborate.

Name Brendan Wallace
Age 38
Title Co-founder and Managing Director
Company Fifth Wall
Industry Venture Capital
Location L.A
Funds Raised $1B
Business Mission Founded in 2016, Fifth Wall is the largest venture capital fund in Los Angeles. Fifth Wall has raised $1B from 52 the world’s largest owners and developers of real estate, including firms like Marriott, Hines, British Land, Related, Prologis, Lennar, and others. Fifth Wall actively invests in technologies for the global real-estate industry such as Opendoor, Industrious, VTS, Hippo, and Clutter.

Name Jason Wilk
Age 34
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company Dave
Industry FinTech
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $183M
Business Mission Dave is an online banking platform and mobile application minus the high interest and overdraft fees that other banks possess. Dave hopes to improve people’s financial situations by providing a more human approach to banking.

Name Ryan Williams
Age 31
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company Cadre
Industry Real Estate Technology
Location N.Y.
Funds Raised $133M
Business Mission Cadre provides qualified individuals and institutions access to fully vetted commercial real-estate opportunities. The company has also built the industry’s first secondary market for commercial real estate, enabling investors to achieve liquidity. Cadre combines its institutional experience with differentiated technology to empower investors through direct access, lower fees, and greater transparency. Cadre eclipsed $3B in assets acquired, and three properties sold on platform.

Name Lidia Yan
Age 38
Title Co-founder and CEO
Company NEXT Trucking
Industry Freight service
Location L.A.
Funds Raised $125M
Business Mission NEXT Trucking created the first trucker-centric marketplace, connecting small fleets and owner operators with freight from major shippers. They empower more than 16,000 professional, vetted drivers to drive where, when and how they wish. NEXT’s smart routing technology matches driver preferences with location information, limiting the time that trucks drive empty and enabling drivers to make more than $1,000 per day. NEXT trucking is trusted by six out of the ten largest shippers in America. Yan oversees the company’s vision and growth strategies. In some cases, this means speaking at conferences or pitching VCs. In others, it means spending time in operations meetings understanding the nuances that go into the shipping business and providing guidance. NEXT is changing the lives of the people who work diligently to deliver the goods they consume every day. They want to bring the NEXT solution to every port across the US. Starting in Los Angeles, they are doing just that: decongesting the port, giving drivers a more balanced life, and helping terminals to be more efficient to ultimately create a better first mile experience.