Atlanta's burgeoning tech scene, known for major corporate expansions and successful entrepreneur stories, is driven by the city's top-tier universities and startup incubators.
And it's there that we've found some of the youngest and most talented minds in the area's startup ecosystem.
Every year, Atlanta Inno highlights 25 Atlanta locals, aged 25 and younger, who are already making an impact with their entrepreneurial ambitions.
These honorees have launched startups straight out of their dorm rooms, started nonprofits and organizations to bring innovators together, work at major venture capital firms to foster growing businesses or are leading growth behind established companies.
Here is the 2022 Atlanta Inno 25 Under 25:
Wesley Pergament, Jeffery Zhou, Brayden Drury
Title: Founders
Company: Sola
As a volunteer for Hurricane Sandy victims, Wesley Pergament saw the vulnerability homeowners have when it comes to natural disasters and the gap in insurance protection. Sola uses data to pinpoint exact homes that were affected by disasters, and the likelihood of future calamities, and what payments could be needed. The startup won first place at Georgia Tech's 2022 InVenture Prize, getting $20,000 and a free U.S. patent filing from Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing.
Riya Lakkaraju
Title: Founder
Company: MockOn
Having a love of competitive public speaking and seeing a need for equity in forensics after Covid-19, Lakkaraju founded MockOn. The organization helps high school students nationwide perform public speaking, specifically with mock trial forensics. It offers masterclasses on public speaking, national competitions and aims to create an equitable and accessible space for diverse students to improve. Lakkaraju graduated in May from the Goizueta Business School with a BBA in strategy and management consulting.
Cole Schendl, Pruitt Martin, Manny Jonson and Jack Sanniota
Title: Founders
Company: 404 DAO
Schendl, Martin, Jonson and Sanniota's nonprofit focuses on increasing awareness of digital assets and blockchain technology through conferences, hackathons and networking. 404 DAO recently hosted its flagship conference Web3 ATL, which is an initiative aimed at onboarding Atlanta’s tech talent and academia to Web3. Schendl graduated from Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business in May, where he founded Blockchain at Georgia Tech, the school’s blockchain organization.
Alim Charaniya
Title: Founder
Company: The Ambitious App
Being raised in an immigrant family, Charaniya saw the difficulties of economic mobility without higher education. Now, after building two sports apps, Alim aims to make attaining a tech job possible for anyone with a smartphone. His startup, The Ambitious App, teaches digital skills in around 5 minutes a day with lessons and courses that mimic social media stories. Charaniya previously worked as a senior software engineer at Atlanta sports betting company PrizePicks.
De’Havia Stewart
Title: Investor
Company: Anthemis
As an investor at Anthemis, a $1.5 billion early stage fintech venture firm, Stewart provides, evaluates and sources post-investment support to companies from pre-seed to Series A. Previously, Stewart helped deploy more than $100 million into Black, Latino and Native American founders as an investor at SoftBank’s Opportunity Fund. She has also mentored founders through organizations such as Microsoft for Startups, Google for Startups and Techstars.
Margaret Beckley
Title: Economic development program manager
Company: Metro Atlanta Chamber
Beckley is working to grow Atlanta as an innovation hub. By working with incubators, corporations and community partners, she aims to drive investment in the city. She also manages the Atlanta Esports Alliance, a private 501(c) 6 division of the Atlanta Sports Council, which leverages the region’s sports pedigree and digital tech ecosystem to make Atlanta a leader in esports and gaming.
Leander Howard II
Title: Founder
Company: Spark Your Resume
Howard founded Spark Your Resume in 2020 to help more people find meaningful work. The company is a full-service career agency that aims to help managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-suite professionals land their dream job within months — without applying for jobs online. Within the past two-and-a-half years, it has helped more than 500 professionals increase their salaries by as much as $85,000, said Howard.
Esco Hill
Title: Founder
Company: Esco Eats
After a failed kitchen experiment, Esco Hill has aspirations of making his Esco Eats World Famous Apple Cobbler Pie the top destination dessert in the world. The company’s product - an apple pie when room temperature and an apple cobbler when heated - has been sold at Truist Park and will be sold at the premium seating of Georgia Tech’s football, basketball and baseball events, along with the John Lewis Student Center. Because of Hill's unique story, he was admitted into Georgia Tech’s Create-X program and graduated Aug. 25.
Ryan Cooper
Title: Founding member
Company: Syfted
Cooper, an industrial engineering student at Georgia Tech, was approached by one of his friends with an idea to bring tech into the beauty industry. After one summer in the school's Create-X program, he founded Syfted. The company makes finding your next nail artist simple. The company received a $5,000 grant from Georgia Tech Venture Lab and aims to launch its platform by 2023.
Tim Felbinger
Title: Founder and CEO
Company: StartProto
It started as a capstone project to build a makerspace management system, but in 2021, Felbinger's Startproto won second place at the InVenture Prize competition. The company is a work management platform meant to improve communication and work in progress tracking for the manufacturing industry. An electric engineering student at Georgia Tech, Felbinger ran the GaTech Invention Studio from 2018 to 2021 and interned at BMW in Munich, Germany.
Blake Reid
Title: Co-founder
Company: Walkthru
Georgia Tech student Blake Reid created WalkThru with hopes that virtual reality could help elderly populations combat social isolation. Using headsets, customers can virtually go back to their honeymoon in Paris or a journey across the Amazon rainforest. To date, its services have been used by more than 15 communities - totaling thousands of residents across all levels of care.
Bryanna Marshall
Title: Founder
Company: Carit
Bryanna Marshall, an alumni of Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, became CEO and founder of Carit in January to support mothers through every stage of pregnancy and postpartum. The startup connects mothers to licensed professionals specializing in mental, physical and community health.
Gabriel Arkanum
Title: Product Lead
Company: Knightley
At Knightley, a software platform that helps entrepreneurs connect with investors, package their pitch materials and analyze their traction, Arkanum builds tools and communities to help entrepreneurs create their next big idea. As the company’s product lead, he works to develop the product roadmap and understand the customers. Previously, he was co-founder of Atlanta startup Byomes, which provided software consulting to businesses.
Daksh Gupta
Title: Founder
Company: Tabnam
A senior at Georgia Tech Gupta, founded Tabnam to create a more seamless experience for giving customer reviews. Rather than emailing customers after they receive products and services, Gupta’s startup built a text message chatbot for using advanced AI that asks a company’s customers questions about their experience and to reply with reviews. Gupta was previously president of Data Science at Georgia Tech, a student-run data science organization.
Yash Singhal
Title: Founder
Company: CaseDocker
Singhal, a junior at Georgia Tech, created CaseDocker as a way to help legal professionals access their virtual work desk from any device. Legal professionals from law firms and corporations can manage their calendar, contacts, tasks and client matters while collaborating with their team and customers. The startup also offers AI assisted legal research through its research platform Caseica.
Amir and Jad Helmy
Title: Co-founders
Company: HealthAppy Tech
These brothers are on a mission to mitigate the number of neurological related emergency events with their startup that uses data models to predict emergencies, inform clinical decisions and pharmaceutical drug efficacy. The mobile app is meant for families with loved ones with neurological conditions, specifically epilepsy.
William Leonard
Title: Investor
At Valor Ventures, Leonard leads sourcing efforts and investor rounds in fintech, Web3, digital health and creator-economy companies at the seed and early stage throughout the Southeast. He's active in the BLCK.VC nonprofit and is a frequent speaker on venture capital at local universities like Emory University and Spelman College.
Marzeah Khorramabadi
Title: Founder
Company: Stridelink
Shortly after graduating from Georgia Tech, Khorramabadi founded StrideLink to make remote gait monitoring technology a widespread tool to track a patient’s recovery from lower extremity injuries. Clinicians using its software are able to remotely collect data and monitor changes in patient gait symmetry with a pair of wearable sensors.
Veralyn Bingham
Title: Founder
Company: Azoula Inc.
Originally from Philadelphia, Bingham is a 19-year-old philosopher, entrepreneur and writer studying history at Spelman College. Her company aims to be the incubator for the new generation of doulas, who are people that provide support to pregnant individuals during labor and advocate for maternal health. The company is building its first cohort program for 2023.
Tariq Waseem
Title: Founder
Organization: Blockchain GSU
Waseem started a small cryptocurrency group in 2016. It turned into the first blockchain and cryptocurrency club at Georgia State University. He called it BlockchainGSU. Waseem developed courses that include basics of blockchain, smart contract development and how to create an NFT & ERC-20 — all free of charge. Now, he is building Atlanta DAO, a community focused on onboarding and personal development in the Atlanta Web3 ecosystem.
Gabe Cherian
Title: Founder and managing partner
Organization: StartupGSU
The summer after his freshman year, Cherian pitched to the faculty at Georgia State University's Robinson College of Business to start a university-backed venture fund called StartupGSU. He then developed a rubric that has been used to invest thousands of dollars into four early-stage startups. As its managing partner, Gabriel oversees a 20-member partner team composed of MBA and undergraduate students from GSU.
Qazi Haq
Title: Senior Associate
Company: EY-Parthenon
Born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Haq immigrated to the U.S. in 2016 to attend Georgia State University. At business consultancy EY-Parthenon, Haq has developed strategies for clients to enter new markets, helps integrate merger and acquisition transactions and supports executives on global planning initiatives. He was recently appointed as the Alumni Board Chair for the Panthers Immersion Programs.
Amal Mody
Title: Founder
Company: Where Remote?
After a friend's sister was taken to the hospital because of stress caused by remote work, Mody came up with a way for remote workers to find community. His project, Where Remote?, aims to identify the issues facing remote workers, while also bringing them together to brainstorm and validate ideas. His target customers are the HR departments of large remote-first companies.
Michael Wrubel
Title: Founder
Company: WrubelConsulting LLC
A recent graduate of Emory University, Michael Wrubel has already founded two companies. In 2018, he launched BelBoy Inc., a source for crypto and NFT news. A year later, he founded WrubelConsulting Inc., which provides strategy and marketing consulting, according to LinkedIn. For clients, it helps implement Facebook and Instagram ads and enhances workflows with automated calendar bookings, website design and management systems.
Preity Doshi
Title: Founder
Company: The Unwanted
Originally from Gujarat, India, Doshi is a junior at Emory University. Her zero waste startup creates household products using biodegradable raw materials— some of which include lamps, rugs, dusters, doll tassels and luggage tags. Since launching, the startup has employed more than 50 under-skilled and underprivileged women and has produced over 10 every-day products mostly using textile wastes, according to her LinkedIn.
