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Startup founders 25 years old and younger are raising millions. Read the pitch decks 12 of them used.

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Tech is no stranger to young founders.

Steve Jobs was 21 when he cofounded Apple in 1976. Mark Zuckerberg was 19 when Facebook launched. Whitney Wolfe Herd was 25 when she unveiled Bumble.

Many of today’s startup founders are still young and scrappy. And in the age of AI, they’re even more empowered to barrel ahead.

Some are following the footsteps of tech titans before them and dropping out of college. Others are opting out of the undergraduate experience altogether, with a few ditching high school to pursue careers in tech.

Arlan Rakhmetzhanov, founder of AI coding startup Nozomio, told Business Insider that he dropped out of high school in Kazakhstan after getting accepted into the competitive startup accelerator program, Y Combinator (YC). At the age of 18, he raised $6.2 million for Nozomio.

Rakhmetzhanov isn’t the only teenager finding success in AI. There’s also Toby Brown, a UK teen who raised $1 million for his AI project. There’s also Zach Yadegari, the teenage cofounder of Cal AI, a nutrition app.

College-aged founders are also building companies and raising capital, such as the Yale students behind Series AI, a new social networking startup.


Alyx van der Vorm (25) and Faraz Siddiqi (23) both raised capital for their startups this year.

Alyx van der Vorm (25) and Faraz Siddiqi (23) both raised capital for their startups this year.

Kevin Farley; Muhammad Anjum



The median age for YC participants is now 24 years old, compared to 30 in 2022, YC’s Pete Koomen told The New York Times in August.

Business Insider has interviewed the founders of 12 startups who are 25 years old or younger and have raised millions in funding since 2024 about the pitch decks they used to impress investors.

Read 12 pitch decks founders who are 25 years old or younger used to raise millions:

Note: Founders were 25 or younger when Business Insider published the following articles.

Series A

Seed

  • Ditto, an AI dating startup founded by UC Berkeley dropouts, raised $9.2 million when the founders were 23 and 24. Read its 12-page pitch deck.
  • Lyra, an AI video call startup, raised a $6 million seed out of YC when its founder was 23. Read the 8-slide pitch deck it used.
  • Nexad, an AI adtech startup, raised a $6 million seed after wrapping up A16z’s Speedrun accelerator. Nexad’s CEO was 25. Read the 10-page pitch deck.
  • Orange Slice, a YC-backed sales tech platform, raised $5.3 million when its founders were 23. Read the 7-page pitch deck.
  • Golpo, a generative AI video startup, raised a $4.1 million seed out of YC when its founders — who are also brothers — were 19 and 20. Read its 7-page pitch deck.
  • Bluejay, an AI agent startup, raised a $4 million seed coming out of YC when its founders were 23. Read its 9-page pitch deck.
  • Novoflow, an agentic AI startup building tools for medical clinics, raised $3.1 million when its founders were 18 and 19. Read its pitch deck.
  • CodeFour, an AI police tech startup, was founded by two 19-year-old MIT dropouts and raised $2.7 million coming out of YC. Read the pitch deck.
  • Cerca, a dating app that connects people with mutual friends, raised a $1.6 million seed when its CEO was 23. Read the 10-slide deck.

Pre-seed

  • Series, an AI social networking startup, raised a $3.1 million pre-seed when its founders were 21.

This story has been updated with additional examples.




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Read 46 pitch decks that creator-economy startups used to raise millions of dollars

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The creator economy has bred a generation of startups — from influencer-marketing companies to new social-media experiences.

These startups have captured the attention and wallets of influential venture capitalists and angel investors over the last several years, giving rise to several unicorn valuations in the space.

Check out 16 VC firms investing in creator economy startups

Even as the economy has weathered changing tides and investments have cooled across industries, some startups in this sector are still raising money.

In 2024, three trends drove some of the largest deals in the creator economy: AI, social commerce, and newsletters. Several startups raised at least $10 million in new funding last year, such as AI startup Captions or newsletter platform Beehiiv.

Here are 17 creator-economy startups that raised more than $10 million in 2024

AI is continuing to fuel investor interest in the creator economy in 2025, too. For instance, Hedra, a generative AI startup used by some creators to make viral content, announced a $32 million Series A led by A16z in May.

Creators themselves, like Emma Chamberlain and MrBeast, are also raising venture capital for their businesses.

See the leaked pitch deck Chamberlain Coffee used

So, how do creator-economy startups land those investments? Often, it starts with a pitch deck. 

Lumanu, a creator-focused financial startup, uses a simple pitch deck that’s more of a “conversation guider,” its cofounder and CEO, Tony Tran, told Business Insider.

“My pitch is always why, what, how, and why now?” Tran said. (Read the full pitch deck here.)

Skye, a career-coaching startup, had different pitch decks depending on the type of investor or fund they pitched to.

“I had two different versions, depending on the fund,” said Jessica Wolf, Skye’s CEO and one of its cofounders. “If I knew a fund was more into pre-seed, all about the founder, I had one deck. But if I knew that they were a numbers person, I would use another one.”

Every startup has a different approach.

Some, such as Throne, even ditch the pitch deck altogether and opt for an email or Notion document.

Read the email template creator-economy startup Throne used to secure its seed investment.

We talked with founders who’ve pitched their startups to investors about their process. They broke down the pitch decks they used to secure millions of dollars in funding.

Read the pitch decks that helped 46 creator-focused startups fundraise millions of dollars:

Note: Pitch decks are sorted by investment stage and size of round.

Series A

  • Restream, a livestreaming alternative to platforms like the Amazon-owned Twitch: $50 million Series A (14 pages)
  • Hedra, a generative AI video platform: $32 million Series A (9 pages)
  • Dub, a fintech startup that lets people copy influencers’ stock trades: $30 million Series A (15 pages)
  • ShopMy, an affiliate platform that lets creators earn commissions through shoppable landing pages: $26.5 million Series A (23 pages)
  • Posh, an IRL events startup: $22 million Series A (12 pages)
  • Pearpop, a creator-marketing platform: $18 million Series A (18 pages)
  • Spoon Radio, a social-audio startup: $17 million Series A (15 pages)
  • Kyra, a content studio, talent-management firm, and influencer-marketing platform: $15 million Series A (20 pages)
  • Allstar, a startup helping gamers become social-media creators: $12 million Series A (6 pages)
  • Lumanu, a business-solutions platform for creators: $12 million Series A (8 pages)
  • Hype, a platform for link-in-bio and other creator-monetization tools: $10 million Series A (13 pages)
  • Catch+Release, a startup that helps creators and everyday social-media users license their content to brands: $8.8 million Series A (12 pages)
  • Slip.stream, a music startup focused on gamers: $7.5 million Series A (13 pages)
  • Brag House, an esports startup: $5 million Series A (24 pages)
  • CreatorDB, an influencer marketing company: $4.7 million Series A (13 pages)

Seed

  • Linguana, an AI video translation startup that is targeting YouTubers: $8.5 million (13 pages)
  • AvatarOS, a startup building virtual avatars for social media, gaming, and other immersive experiences: $7 million (11 pages)
  • Hypernatural, a generative AI startup that wants to be the Canva for video: $6.8 million (14 pages)
  • Scenario, a generative AI startup to create gaming art and assets: $6 million seed (8 pages)
  • Sesh, a music startup that connects artists and fans using their mobile wallets: $5 million seed (13 pages)
  • Authoritive, an online course-development startup: $5 million seed (11 pages)
  • Dstlry, a comic-book creator startup: $5 million seed (26 pages)
  • Dharma, a travel startup for creators and brands: $4.7 million pre-Series A (17 pages)
  • Glystn, an AI-powered community-management platform: $4 million seed (15 pages)
  • Daisy, an influencer marketing startup that launched in 2024: $3.9 million (9 pages)
  • Anima, an augmented-reality startup: $3 million (15 pages)
  • Grandstand, a sports startup working with athlete creators: $2.75 million
  • Seam Social, a new Web3 social-media platform: $2.5 million (10 pages)
  • Spark, a digital art platform from the YouTuber Moriah Elizabeth: $2.5 million seed (9 pages)
  • Insense, a startup helping e-commerce brands get low-cost ads: $2.5 million pre-Series A (9 pages)
  • Supercast, a podcast subscriptions startup: $2 million seed (20 pages)
  • Chartmetric, a music-data and -measurement company: $2 million seed (46 pages)
  • Ultimate Playlist, a music-marketing startup: $2 million round (9 pages)
  • Magroove, a music-distribution and -discovery platform: $1.6 million seed (21 pages)
  • Stagetime, a professional-networking startup for performing artists: $1.5 million seed (13 pages)
  • Jubilee Media, a content studio looking to expand beyond YouTube and TikTok: $1.1 million seed-plus (12 pages)

Pre-Seed

Other




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Read the pitch decks of 14 startups looking to disrupt dating apps and social networking that have raised millions

by with No Comment Xpandfy

A new generation of consumer social startups is emerging.

From platforms focused on getting people to meet IRL to dating apps taking on Tinder or Hinge, startups are disrupting the digital social scene.

Founders of these startups are tackling problems like loneliness, dating app fatigue, and general dissatisfaction with the current social media incumbents.

Some founders come from Big Tech backgrounds, like the Instagram-heavy team behind photo-sharing app Retro, or the ex-Google employees building the social-mapping app PamPam. Gen Z founders are also throwing their hats in the ring, like Isabella Epstein’s IRL-focused app Kndrd, or Tiffany “TZ” Zhong’s Noplace app.

Investors are taking notice.

For instance, the IRL-social app 222, which matches strangers over dinner or activities with a personality quiz, raised a $2.5 million seed round from venture capital firms like 1517 Fund, General Catalyst, and Best Nights VC in 2024.

“We’re entering this new wave of social where people are trying to revert back to what people really use these platforms for to begin with — which is connection,” Maitree Mervana Parekh, a principal at Acrew Capital, told Business Insider in 2024.

Meet 19 startups in social networking, dating, and AI that investors have their eyes on

Some venture capital funds — such as French firm Intuition VC or gaming-focused firm Patron — have made tackling loneliness and relationships part of their investment theses.

But it’s not just friendship and dating that are ripe for disruption.

Startups like Khosla Ventures-backed Gigi, Yale-student-founded Series, Boardy, Filament, and Goodword have raised capital for AI tools to help people network better or maintain professional relationships.

“When people think about loneliness, they think about friends and family,” Goodword CEO Caroline Dell recently told Business Insider. “But we spend most of our waking hours at work as professionals.”

Meet the founders of 11 startups competing with dating app giants like Tinder

Other startups, like Diem and Spill, have opened up investment rounds to include users themselves using the platform Wefunder.

It’s not yet clear how many of these investments will pan out. Some startups are pre-revenue, while others are experimenting with monetization methods (such as freemium models).

“Founders have to be honest with themselves,” said Marlon Nichols, a founding partner at Mac Venture Capital. “Some of them aren’t really venture-scale or venture-type investments. We’re looking for the next big thing, the next category leader.”

Meet 12 VCs and investors eyeing new social startups

Business Insider spoke with several social media and dating app founders about how they are raising capital, including the pitch decks they used to raise millions of dollars.

Read the pitch decks that helped 14 social-networking and dating startups raise millions of dollars:

Note: Pitch decks are sorted by investment stage and size of round.

Series A

Seed

Pre-Seed

Other

Read about more social networking and dating startups raising millions:

  • Airbuds, a social music app, told Business Insider in November that it has raised $10.2 million — including a recent check from Alexis Ohanian’s VC fund.
  • Sweatpals, a fitness and wellness social platform, raised $12 million in seed funding.
  • Sitch, an AI matchmaking dating app, announced in April that it had raised $2 million in pre-seed funding.
  • Amata, another AI matchmaking dating startup, recently launched in the US and disclosed that it raised $6 million in 2023.
  • Gigi, an AI social network for making professional connections, announced in September that it raised $3 million from Khosla Ventures.
  • Corner, a social mapping app for Gen Z, disclosed in September that it has raised $3.75 million.




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