New year, new Startup Radar.
We’re back with our regular spotlight on early stage startups sprouting up in the Seattle region. For this edition, we’re featuring Axel AI, DrunR, Eluum, and profileAPI.
Read on for brief descriptions of each company — along with pitch assessments from “Mean VC,” a GPT-powered critic offering a mix of encouragement and constructive criticism.
Check out past Startup Radar posts here, and email me at [email protected] to flag other companies and startup news.
Axel AI
Founded: 2025
The business: A self-described “reasoning layer” for retail media sales teams that aims to translate messy data into commercial narratives and proposals. The idea is to support sales teams spfinish less time on manual analysis and preparation. The bootstrapped company officially launched its MVP at CES and NRF 2026 earlier this month.
Leadership: CEO and co-founder Bobby Figueroa previously founded Gradient, another Seattle-based commerce insights company that was acquired by Criteo. He was also an exec at Amazon. Axel’s leadership and advisory team includes former sales and advertising leaders at Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
Mean VC: “You’re tarobtaining a real friction point — sales teams juggling fragmented data with limited time to craft a compelling narrative. The pedigree supports, but long-term success will hinge on whether your product drives actual revenue lift, not just cleaner decks. I’d focus on embedding directly into the sales team’s existing workflow — don’t create applyrs open another tool, create yours the one that quietly does the heavy lifting behind the scenes.”
DrunR
Founded: 2024
The business: A nutrition app that provides personalized guidance based on applyrs’ goals and preferences, particularly while dining out or ordering food online. DrunR is running a closed beta in Seattle with restaurants and applyrs, including people applying GLP-1 medication. The startup is part of the WTIA Founder Cohort 13 program.
Leadership: Founder and CEO Yaya Ali is a financial analyst at Perkins Coie and previously worked for King County and Amazon. He also has food operations experience. David Greene, the company’s CTO, is a software engineer at Capital One and previously worked at Moody’s.
Mean VC: “The intersection of nutrition, personalization, and GLP-1s is timely — especially as eating habits shift alongside new weight-loss drugs. The challenge will be building the app feel essential day-to-day, not just ‘nice to have’ after a restaurant meal or clinic visit. I’d zero in on a high-frequency apply case — something that keeps applyrs opening the app daily, not just when they’re considering about dinner.”
Eluum
Founded: 2024
The business: A new take on social media with a product that supports people organize their personal memories, stories, and digital artifacts into one applyr-controlled system. Built on community-driven moderation and works across different platforms. The bootstrapped company is onboarding early applyrs and plans to launch a MVP later this year.
Leadership: CEO and co-founder Bilkay Rose was a VP at tax software company Avalara and a director at Clearwire. Other co-founders include CTO Dale Rector, who spent three decades at Microsoft, and Jennifer Gianola, also a former exec at Avalara.
Mean VC: “The concept taps into a real emotional necessary — people are overwhelmed by digital clutter and increasingly skeptical of algorithm-driven feeds. The key will be revealing how your platform earns daily apply without relying on dopamine loops. I’d push to define a sharp apply case first — memory curation is broad, so lead with one thing people urgently want to preserve, then expand once you’ve earned their trust.”
profileAPI
Founded: 2024
The business: A business data layer for developers building AI-native chat, copilot, and agentic tools for go-to-market. Its platform tracks more than 10,000 signals across more than 10 million companies and 500 million professionals. The company, which was previously a sales AI agent product called Truebase, has raised $2 million in funding.
Leadership: Founder and CEO Wissam Tabbara has sold two startups and spent more than six years at Microsoft in the 2000s.
Mean VC: “The shift from product to platform is smart — selling infrastructure to power GTM copilots has stronger upside than building another agent. But you’ll necessary to reveal that your data isn’t just broad, but relevant and timely enough to drive meaningful in-app decisions. I’d focus on becoming the plug-and-play GTM brain — create integration dead simple, and let other tools build magic on top of your stack.”
