Tech is no stranger to young founders.
Steve Jobs was 21 when he cofounded Apple in 1976. Mark Zuckerberg was 19 when Facebook launched. Whitney Wolfe Herd was 25 when she unveiled Bumble.
Many of today’s startup founders are still young and scrappy. And in the age of AI, they’re even more empowered to barrel ahead.
Some are following the footsteps of tech titans before them and dropping out of college. Others are opting out of the undergraduate experience altogether, with a few ditching high school to pursue careers in tech.
Arlan Rakhmetzhanov, founder of AI coding startup Nozomio, told Business Insider that he dropped out of high school in Kazakhstan after getting accepted into the competitive startup accelerator program, Y Combinator (YC). At the age of 18, he raised $6.2 million for Nozomio.
Rakhmetzhanov isn’t the only teenager finding success in AI. There’s also Toby Brown, a UK teen who raised $1 million for his AI project. There’s also Zach Yadegari, the teenage cofounder of Cal AI, a nutrition app.
College-aged founders are also building companies and raising capital, such as the Yale students behind Series AI, a new social networking startup.
Kevin Farley; Muhammad Anjum
The median age for YC participants is now 24 years old, compared to 30 in 2022, YC’s Pete Koomen told The New York Times in August.
Business Insider has interviewed the founders of 12 startups who are 25 years old or younger and have raised millions in funding since 2024 about the pitch decks they used to impress investors.
BI’s Young Geniuses series spotlights the next generation of founders, innovators, and thinkers who are trying to reshape industries and solve global challenges. See more stories from the series here, or reach out to editor Jess Orwig to share your story.
Read 12 pitch decks founders who are 25 years old or younger used to raise millions:
Note: Founders were 25 or younger when Business Insider published the following articles.
Series A
Seed
Ditto, an AI dating startup founded by UC Berkeley dropouts, raised $9.2 million when the founders were 23 and 24. Read its 12-page pitch deck.Lyra, an AI video call startup, raised a $6 million seed out of YC when its founder was 23. Read the 8-slide pitch deck it used.Nexad, an AI adtech startup, raised a $6 million seed after wrapping up A16z’s Speedrun accelerator. Nexad’s CEO was 25. Read the 10-page pitch deck.Orange Slice, a YC-backed sales tech platform, raised $5.3 million when its founders were 23. Read the 7-page pitch deck.Golpo, a generative AI video startup, raised a $4.1 million seed out of YC when its founders — who are also brothers — were 19 and 20. Read its 7-page pitch deck.Bluejay, an AI agent startup, raised a $4 million seed coming out of YC when its founders were 23. Read its 9-page pitch deck.Novoflow, an agentic AI startup building tools for medical clinics, raised $3.1 million when its founders were 18 and 19. Read its pitch deck.CodeFour, an AI police tech startup, was founded by two 19-year-old MIT dropouts and raised $2.7 million coming out of YC. Read the pitch deck.Cerca, a dating app that connects people with mutual friends, raised a $1.6 million seed when its CEO was 23. Read the 10-slide deck.
Pre-seed
Series, an AI social networking startup, raised a $3.1 million pre-seed when its founders were 21.
This story has been updated with additional examples.
