Next Play

(5/19) A few of our favorite under-the-radar roles from fast-growing companies (2/2): • Sushanth Raman from Pallet is hiring a founding GTM strategy associate. • Sam Hashemi from Felt is hiring in operations, customer success, and sales. • Demis Hassabis from Isomorphic Labs is hiring talent people and engineers. • Nicholas Rudder from Sphere is hiring a founding customer success person. • Dylan Orrell from Polymarket is hiring a partnerships person to focus on sports. • Kaushal Saraf from Atomus is hiring software engineers and account executives. • Farah U. from Nectar Social is hiring a founding marketer and a founding recruiter. • Alex Raymond from Faire is hiring a growth marketing manager to focus on paid social. • Baiju Bhatt from Cowboy Space Corporation is hiring across engineering and people ops. • Carolina (Rojas) Paduano from Opus Health is hiring a head of GTM and customer success. ✨ Follow Next Play for more (and link to full list in the first comment)

A few startups currently hiring after $50-$100m raises (2/3): • UniUni - last-mile delivery (Canada / US / Global) • ChipAgents - AI chip design (Santa Barbara / Bay Area) • Encord - multimodal AI data platform (Bay Area / London) • Addi - payments and banking platform (Colombia remote) • Axiamatic - enterprise transformation platform (Bangalore) • Salma Health - personalized brain health care (California) • Ostro- personalized healthcare engagement (US remote) • Nitra - healthcare finance platform (NYC / DC / Taipei / Seoul) • ARQ - digital dollar wallet (Mexico / Colombia / Argentina) • Mesh Optical Technologies - optical interconnect hardware (LA) ✨ Follow Next Play for more (and link to full list in the first comment)

Here is a goal for the world: things would be better if nonprofits raised a lot more money and were a lot more effective. Chariot, the startup we wrote about this week for our Should You Join series, is on its way to making things happen. They’re doing this by fixing the broken financial rails underlying the entire nonprofit economy. And it’s working well: they’ve already moved $450M+ to nonprofits (like No Kid Hungry, Susan G. Komen, and charity:water). Revenue is up 11x since their Series A. The team is still small and the culture is rather unique -- if you want to see whether you might be a fit, go read our essay about Chariot: https://lnkd.in/djr7saPz Thanks to Aaron Kahane, Salomon Serfati, Elon Packin, Mitch Stein, Julia Rosenson, and others for chatting with us about Chariot.

Y Combinator's startup job board > LinkedIn You can reach the founders and decision-makers directly. My tips: • Reach out right after a batch ends or a raise closes. That's when they're most likely thinking about hiring plans. • Tailor the one-liner at the top of your profile. Swap it per company. • Lead with what you've shipped. Link to GitHub, side projects, Twitter, a personal site. Founders click these. • The application message goes straight to the founder. Use it. Share something useful, like product feedback, a bug you'd fix, an idea. Link to the YC job board in the comments.

(5/19) A few of our favorite under-the-radar roles from fast-growing companies (1/2): • Mark Ross from Dragin is hiring a chief of staff. • Ryan Delk from Primer is hiring a head of schools. • Finn Bauer from kapa.ai is hiring a GTM associate. • Anjney Midha from AMP PBC is hiring for many roles. • Harrison Mann from OpenFX is hiring a head of marketing. • Caelean Barnes from Gauge is hiring a founding salesperson. • Jordan Zamir from Turnstile is hiring a head of product marketing. • Nico (Nick) Diaz from Domu is hiring a founding account executive. • Trey Benedict from Pure (YC S23) is hiring a founding GTM/sales leader. • Rebecca Kaden from Union Square Ventures is hiring investment analysts. ✨ Follow Next Play for more (and link to full list in the first comment)

A few startups currently hiring after $50-$100m raises (1/3): • Novig - sports prediction market (NYC) • Basis - AI agents for accounting (NYC) • Freeform - AI-native metal 3D printing (LA) • Juicebox - AI recruiting platform (Bay Area) • IDfy - identity verification platform (Mumbai) • Gumloop - no-code AI automation (Bay Area) • Aspire Fiber - fiber internet (Orlando / Ventura) • BreezeBio - genetic medicine delivery (Bay Area) • Guidde - AI video documentation (NYC / Tel Aviv) • Jump - Advisor AI - AI for financial advisors (US remote) ✨ Follow Next Play for more (and link to full list in the first comment)

Thrilled to announce our Q2 Next Play LA dinner! Big thank you to repeat co-hosts Caroline Cherkassky and Nick Feldman at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and Lida Vandermeer at Wonder Ventures for their continued support for LA's startup ecosystem. These dinners are off the record and no pitching - just LA's best builders in a room together. Past ones have been genuinely good. Come make this one better. Who: Founders and aspiring founders Where: (A very good) Venice restaurant When: June 4 at ~6 pm What: Dinner & hang How to apply: Link in comments!

COMPANIES THAT JUST RAISED $10-50M (NOW HIRING) All 37 of these companies are actively hiring and backed by top funds: 1) Nectar Social -  AI platform for community management (SF / remote) 2) CircuitHub - circuit board assembly (remote / Massachusetts) 3) Outmarket AI - AI for insurance industry (SF / India / remote) 4) belo - digital wallet for international funds (remote) 5) 9amHealth - cardio-metabolic management (remote / San Diego) 6) CopilotKit - open-source AI copilot framework (SF) 7) Living Carbon - reforestation and carbon capture biotech (SF / remote) 8) Novella - commercial insurance procurement (NYC / TLV) 9) BranchLab - AI for pharma commercialization (NYC / Boulder) 10) Casa - home life membership (SF) 11) Enzo Health - AI documentation for home health (Lehi / remote) 12) Dandelion Health - real-world patient data AI (NYC / remote) 13) Dome Systems - control system for enterprise AI agents (remote) 14) Photon - transparent prescription marketplace (NYC) 15) Windmill - code-first orchestration (remote) 16) Lithosquare - AI mineral exploration (Paris / remote / hybrid) 17) gaiia - billing for internet service providers (Montreal / remote) 18) Adfin - invoice and payment automation (London) 19) Squads - stablecoin financial infrastructure (NYC / remote) 20) Patronus AI - digital workflow simulation with world models (SF) 21) SPREAD AI - engineering data consolidation (Berlin / Munich) 22) Sofía - digital medical insurance (Mexico City / remote) 23) Turnkey - non-custodial wallet infrastructure (NYC / remote) 24) Quantum Art - scalable quantum computing (Israel / US) 25) Optura.AI - AI orchestration for healthcare enterprises (SF / Nashville) 26) Consensus - AI academic search engine (remote) 27) XBOW - autonomous AI offensive security (remote) 28) Augustus - global payments API (Berlin / Munich / remote) 29) Judgment Labs - AI agent behavior monitoring toolkit (SF) 30) Nova Intelligence - AI for SAP modernization (NY) 31) Actively AI - AI outbound sales automation (NYC / SF) 32) Nace AI - AI agents for accounting and auditing (remote) 33) Windmill - AI performance management automation (NYC) 34) Vori - B2B operating system for grocery (SF) 35) Happl - global employee benefits (London / remote) 36) Ethos - expert network for market insights (SF / remote) 37) Pit - AI product team for enterprises (Stockholm) Adding direct links to their career pages in the comments 👋 follow me for more lists like this every week: Ben Lang ✨ thank you to Harmonic (startup database) for helping me source the list 💪 make sure to join Next Play if you're exploring what comes next in your career

This week, we wrote about Knit - the first AI-native market research firm. Most companies in market research right now are building software platforms (DIY tools you log into and operate yourself), and legacy firms are bolting AI onto their old workflows. Knit is doing neither. Instead, they’ve built a services-focused business where a Forward-Deployed researcher works along AI agents to answer customers’ questions end-to-end. So far, it’s working well. 50+ enterprise customers including Amazon, T-Mobile, and Paramount. 5x growth last year and a $16.1M Series A. The average customer more than doubles their spend in year one. Sequoia recently wrote that the next $1T company will be a software company masquerading as a services firm. Knit is a good example of that thesis in the wild. So should you join? Read our essay and find out: https://lnkd.in/gZNTxTu7

A few of the fastest-growing startups currently hiring (3/3): • Giga - AI support agents for enterprises (Bay Area / NYC / Vancouver) • Legora - AI for legal professionals (Stockholm / NYC / Malmö / London) • Biorce - AI-powered clinical trial optimization (Austin / Barcelona / NYC) • Rain - stablecoin financial infrastructure (NYC / DC / San Juan / Remote) • Emergent - autonomous AI coding automation tool (Bangalore / Bay Area) • SpotmyEnergy - home energy management and metering (Cologne / Berlin) • GC AI - AI for in-house legal teams (Bay Area / US remote / Canada remote) • Multiverse Computing - quantum software for optimization problems (Global) • Nscale - GPU cloud for AI workloads (US remote / UK remote / EMEA remote) • Braintrust - AI application development and evaluation (Bay Area / NYC / Seattle) ✨ Follow Next Play for more (and link to full list in the first comment)