Start-up Society #70
Keeping The American Dream Alive
Welcome to the 70th edition of Start-up Society! This is a weekly blog that promotes nationwide entrepreneurship and highlights some of the most exciting start-ups in the country striving to keep the American Dream alive.
Make sure you check out the previous issue, if you have not already, here!
Today’s issue offers a bit of déjà vu from last week’s as we are again highlighting one company from New York and one company from Washington. However, the two start-ups are extremely distinct in all aspects:
East Coast vs West Coast. Cleantech vs AI. Jewelry vs Software.
Not only that, but these firms are also at very different stages in their start-up lifecycle, with one being Pre-Seed and the other coming off a Series F raise. Which one is your favorite? Read on to find out!
New York
Aether Diamonds
HQ: New York
Founded: 2018
Employees: 11 (on LinkedIn)
ABOUT THE COMPANY
- Aether Diamonds converts CO2 in the atmosphere into wearable diamonds and luxury jewelry, giving pollution a new purpose.
- This is a stark contrast to other competitors in the diamond industry because traditional diamond mining leads to soil erosion, deforestation, and ecosystem destruction. One carat of diamond correlates to 100 square feet of soil removal or 6,000 pounds of waste material.
“We are utilizing direct air capture technology to pull harmful atmospheric CO2… We then take that through a bit of modern alchemy, and the proprietary manufacturing process we’ve developed, to turn it into gem grade diamonds… They have the exact same chemical, mechanical and optical properties, and there’s not a human being on the planet that can tell the difference. The only way you can do so is by essentially running a chemical analysis — and lab grown diamonds are in fact more pure than what comes from the ground.” — Ryan Shearman, Co-Founder & CEO
- This leads to a product that is almost a carbon copy of a diamond which is both satisfying the consumer and environment. Altogether, the complete “Aether process” conserves 127 gallons of water and every one carat of diamond produced removes 20 tons of carbon from the atmosphere.
MEET THE TEAM
Ryan Shearman, Co-Founder & CEO
- Prior to founding Aether Diamonds, Ryan Shearman received his Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Fairfield University in 2010.
- He then founded FUSAR, whose goal was to bring advanced safety technologies to the Powersports industry, in October 2013.
- In 2020, Ryan went on to be a climate tech angel investor and also became a NEXUS Global Summit Delegate.
Anthony Ippolito, Co-Founder & CTO
- Prior to Aether Diamonds, Anthony graduated from the New Jersey Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering in 2014.
- He worked as a Manufacturing Engineer for Crane Aerospace & Electronics before joining Axens North America as a Process Design Engineer in 2014 until he joined the Aether Diamonds team in 2018.
Robert Hagemann, Co-Founder & CMO
- Robert received his MBA in Marketing at Harvard Business School before becoming a Product Manager for Microsoft in 2010.
- He has worked as the Director of Marketing for L’oreal and as a Director for a few other companies before founding Corgi Spirits in 2015.
- Robert then went on to serve on the board and as an investor for many projects before joining Aether Diamonds in 2020.
Daniel Wojno, Co-Founder & COO
- Previously, Daniel earned his Bachelors of Science from Marquette University in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters from Case WEstern Reserve University in Engineering and Management.
- He started his Career in engineering for over 2.5 years at Strattec Security Corp. In 2011 he joined David Yurman as a Product Engineer and left as Director of Operations in 2016.
- Then Daniel joined Pandora spending four years in their Quality Assurance group until he left in 2020 to join Aether full time.
THE START-UP SOCIETY ASSESSMENT
- Saving the environment by making diamonds is something we never thought we would hear of. Aether Diamonds offers us a chance to turn a vast majority of the bad we have created into something priceless and beautiful.
- Aether Diamonds is on a fast track to growth because of its uniqueness and out-of-the-box ideology to solving a pressing issue. Diamonds were never truly a ‘girl’s best friend’ simply because they did more harm than good. But now, Aether Diamonds gives us an alternate and better option, making diamonds a worthy BFF.
GO DEEPER
This Company Is Making Diamonds From CO2
Meet Aether, Creators Of The World’s First Carbon-Negative Diamonds
Meet Aether: The World’s First Carbon-Negative Diamonds
The future of diamonds is in recaptured CO2 pollution
Washington
Icertis
HQ: Bellevue
Founded: 2009
Employees: 1,650 (on Linkedin)
ABOUT THE COMPANY
- Icertis is an enterprise contract management platform on the cloud that solves contract management problems on a simplistic platform. With Icertis, companies can accelerate their business by protecting against risk through ensuring regulatory compliance and increase their contract velocity. Through utilizing Icertis companies have the ability to optimize the commercial relationships, thus maximizing revenue and reducing overhead.
- The Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) Platform is where it all begins. Through leveraging an AI-powered system, Icertis can cover the full cycle of contract management capabilities; beginning with their Intelligent Contract Startup, then continuing to negotiations, authoring, and approvals.
- The ICI itself offers two key applications: the Business Application and the AI Application. With regard to the Business Application, the Icertis contract management platform addresses specific business challenges to help a company ramp up quickly through streamlining contracts and processes. The Icertis AI Application leverages a variety of data through more than 10 million contracts. By utilizing their AI platform businesses are given the power of distinctive semantic structures, allowing them to capitalize on previously underutilized assets.
- In March of 2021, Icertis raised an $80 million Series F at a valuation of over $2.8 billion, nearly triple the valuation in their previous round in 2019. Those participating in the round include existing investor B Capital Group, with participation from Greycroft, Meritech Capital Partners, Premji Invest, PSP Growth, and Headline. Icertis plans to use this funding to invest heavily into their Blockchain and AI development platforms, expand their sales footprint, and further expand the Icertis global network.
MEET THE TEAM
Samir Bodas, Co-Founder & CEO
- Previously, Samir earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin in Computer Science in 1985, and his M.B.A. from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in 1992.
- He started off his career at National Instruments as a programmer after his Bachelor’s degree for three years, then moved to Microsoft as a Director for 7 years.
- After a few other prestigious roles, Samir became the CEO of Aztecsoft where he spent a total of 5 years until 2009 when he formed Icertis and has been CEO ever since.
Curt Anderson, CFO
- Previously, Curt earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Puget Sound in Accounting and Finance and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
- He began his career at Deloitte for 9 years in their Audit Practice, then transferred roles to Amazon as a Finance and Marketing associate until 2001.
- After Amazon, Curt went to Microsoft, where he spent 12 years as a GM of Investor Relations then CFO of Manufacturing and Supply Chain.
- After an experience as a CFO for Chef Software from 2013–2018, Curt made his transition to Icertis where he now sits as CFO.
Neal Singh, COO
- Previously, Neal earned his Bachelor’s degree from J.C Bose University of Science and Technology in Process Control Engineering and his M.B.A. from Phillips University.
- Neal began his career as a GM and Partner at Microsoft where he spent 11 years until 2012. He then transitioned to being a CTO then CEO at Caradigm, where he spent 6 years until 2018.
- After his role as CEO at Caradigm, Neal transferred to become the COO of Icertis in 2018.
START-UP SOCIETY ASSESSMENT
- The Icertis platform is truly differentiated, streamlining the contract management systems for all types of businesses. The Icertis leadership team has demonstrated experience and passion for the space, offering the customers a strong value add in the team at Icertis.
- The Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform is used by companies like 3M, Airbus, Cognizant, and Microsoft, with 10 million contracts in 40+ languages across 90+ countries Icertis is geared to dominate the industry.
GO DEEPER
Icertis Partners with WorldCC To Share Findings of Benchmark Report 2021 on Sept 23 Webinar
Thank you for reading this article! Feel free to leave a comment, clap, and follow. Stay tuned for next week’s write-up, posted every Monday at 5 AM ET.
Authored by Arteen Zahiri, Rumeer Keshwani, Thane Wharton, Julian Ramcharan, & Hooman Dadkho
