Visible Hands — a pre-seed venture capital firm, backing overlooked, formidable founders who are transforming the future — announces its fourth cohort of 15 entrepreneurs for VHNYC, a hybrid Fellowship for NYC-based founders. The Fellowship program, created in partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, will provide $10,000 in non-dilutive funding and hands-on, business-oriented support to the 15 overlooked founders who are representative of a NYC's entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Visible Hands and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) have officially launched their fourth cohort for VHNYC, a 14-week hybrid Founder Fellowship for 15 overlooked founders building high-growth startups based in NYC. This group of founders from the five NYC boroughs will work over the next few months to take their startups to the next level in a hybrid-model program.
The founders who were accepted into VHNYC will get the guidance and support needed from the Visible Hands and NYCEDC teams to hit their next major startup milestone. The NYCEDC has granted each of the cohort’s entrepreneurs $10K in non-dilutive funding to financially empower them to work on their startups, and Visible Hands will be providing company-building services throughout the fellowship, as well as the opportunity for additional venture capital funding from the firm after successful completion of the program.
The fellowship was created to help overlooked tech founders across NYC gain more traction in the early stages of their startup, with NYCEDC and Visible Hands hoping to be a strong foundation of support to fill the funding gap for overlooked entrepreneurs. The partners hope VHNYC will reflect the same amount of inspiring opportunity for the cohort as the city of New York does for entrepreneurship as a whole.
VHNYC is an extension of the Visible Hands mission to support overlooked talent, in partnership with NYCEDC’s efforts to create more inclusion in the startup ecosystem.
Here are the amazing 15 founders and startups who make up the inaugural VHNYC cohort:
Javier Duran & Calvin Smith
🏔️ Company: Recruiting LM
Recruiting LM is an AI recruiting firm for government technical hiring.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/javierdutan/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/calvinssmith/
Valentina Marini Fichera
🏔️ Company: MilkShaker
Empowering mothers to breastfeed comfortably and confidently, MilkShaker is a hands-free wearable massager that prevents and treats mastitis, clogged ducts, and low milk supply.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/milkshaker/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/valentinacmf/
Arianna Hoffman & Michelle Chong
🏔️ Company: Eira Health
Eira Health helps patients with autoimmune diseases and other chronic conditions manage their symptoms using AI and machine learning. It identifies individual triggers and provides clinical insights to help patients improve their outcomes over time.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eira-health-app/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianna-hoffman/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-chong-319469156/
Luis Pierpauli
🏔️ Company: Gisens Biotech
Gisens Biotech is bringing lab-quality testing into patients' homes — no shipping, no waiting, just real-time results on demand. Through a patented biosensor platform, it enables tests that once required a clinical lab, to run from a saliva sample at home. Gisens Biotech is starting with chronic kidney disease, giving the 850 million patients worldwide the ability to self-monitor for the first time. Already deployed with Roche across Latin America and backed by Berkeley Skydeck, it's building the infrastructure for always-on, patient-centric care.
👋 Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/gisens-biotech-sa / https://linkedin.com/in/luis-pierpauli-914b07187
Saneera Dev
🏔️ Company: Fleebo
Fleebo is a story-driven walking tour technology platform that makes NYC exploration interactive and memorable for visitors as well as curious locals. Instead of a rigid tour or a generic listicle, users get a curated route, trivia-based clues at real landmarks, insight from locals at every stop, and reveal moments that make discovery memorable. Fleebo's tours are self-paced and map-based, personalized by interests, and curated with local context. They help people move beyond the same top-10 stops and discover new neighborhoods, small businesses, and cultural institutions.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fleebo / https://www.linkedin.com/in/saneera-dev/
Saad Soroya
🏔️ Company: VascAI Inc
VascAI Inc helps community health workers and caregivers get reimbursed for delivering care while up-skilling them using AI agents.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vascai-technology / https://www.linkedin.com/in/saad-s-4b638122
Anthony Grullon
🏔️ Company: Groupr
Groupr is a social commerce platform that helps families save on groceries by shopping together.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/joingroupr/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/grullonanthony/
Bagus Wicaksono Ruswandi
🏔️ Company: Studio Bumi LLC
Studio Bumi is a New York–based food experience studio designing belonging through communal dining. While many tech-based platforms attempt to facilitate connection by matching people or prompting gatherings, Studio Bumi LLC focuses on creating hosts by designing infrastructure, systems, and tools that enable former guests to become facilitators and co-hosts. Their work activates local kitchens, homes, and underutilized spaces across NYC while supporting a growing network of hosts. They are building a scalable platform for social connection that strengthens local economies through people-powered gatherings.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/studiobumi/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/bagusruswandi/
Isaac Sarfo
🏔️ Company: Papermap AI
Papermap is building an interface for business users to query structured data deterministically while adhering to governance and security guardrails.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/papermap/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacmsarfo/
Stonny Liu
🏔️ Company: VenueHopper Inc.
VenueHopper Inc. is an end-to-end AI event planner.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avent-ai/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/stonnyliu
Jerlisa Fontaine
🏔️ Company: HuCapital
HuCapital is an AI social platform uniting entrepreneurial creatives and professionals through 1:1 & peer group matching; sparking IRL collaboration.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hucapital/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerlisafontaine/
Ash Straughn & Max Carmenar
🏔️ Company: sam.
Sam places startup experienced talent in 5 days, on subscription, through AI matching.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/launchsam/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashstraughn / https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-carmenar/
Hourinaz Behesti
🏔️ Company: Hebbian Bio
Hebbian Bio is a biotech company pioneering a new approach to discover and de-risk treatments for neurodevelopmental and related neuropsychiatric disorders.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hebbian-bio/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/hourinaz-behesti-2b965921/
Thiv Paramsothy
🏔️ Company: Hera Fertility
Hera Fertility is an AI-powered male fertility platform providing intelligent infrastructure for fertility clinics, sperm banks, and donor programs. Their AI analyzes semen analysis results with 86-89% accuracy — trained on 6,000+ patient records — helping clinics identify high-potential donors faster, reduce manual review time, and improve patient outcomes.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/herafertility / https://www.linkedin.com/in/thivparam/
Deanna Oliver
🏔️ Company: psyflo
Psyflo is an AI mental health platform that helps youth-serving organizations prevent, identify, and intervene on youth mental health needs and connect them to licensed care — all in one system.
👋 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/psyflo-corp/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannaoliver
