We’re back with another Startup Radar, spotlighting up-and-coming early stage startups across the Seattle region.
These founders are building tech to boost recruiting, marketing, cooking, and AI workflows.
We brought back “Mean VC” to provide some AI-powered analysis of each pitch, based on the descriptions below.
Check out past Startup Radar posts here, and email me at [email protected] to flag other companies and startup news.
CookShelf
Founded: 2024
The business: Brings cookbook collections into the digital age with an app that lets users search their own books by ingredient or dish and then points them to the right page. The app doesn’t reproduce full recipes out of respect for authors and copyright law. CookShelf, which is bootstrapped, acquired Eat Your Books last year and recently launched its app, priced at $39.99/year or $4.99/month.
Leadership: CEO Katie Thacher previously worked in product management at Amazon on Kindle apps and Amazon Music. Jane Kelly, co-founder of Eat Your Books, is COO at CookShelf. Former Amazonian Venkat Ramamurthy leads engineering.
Mean VC: “Acquiring Eat Your Books and finally giving cookbook lovers a searchable, legal way to unlock their shelves is a savvy move with a clear niche audience. But charging $40 a year for glorified indexing feels like a tough sell when most people just yell at Google or TikTok for free recipes in under 10 seconds.”
Dripwave
Founded: 2024
The business: Targets e-commerce brands with an AI-powered email campaign generator that can instantly create multiple variations of marketing emails. The idea is to help companies boost open rates and conversions. Dripwave is bootstrapped and working with brands and email marketing agencies in a private beta.
Leadership: CEO Danesh Badlani was a product manager at Microsoft. He co-founded Dripwave with Aidan Rosswood, a former engineer at Meta, and Chong Sun, a former machine learning specialist at Chewy and Amazon.
Mean VC: “Automating email campaign variations for e-commerce brands hits a real pain point where marginal gains in open rates and conversions translate directly into revenue. The problem is every Email Service Provider and marketing automation platform already bolts on ‘AI email magic,’ so unless Dripwave shows 10x better results, you’re just another SaaS widget fighting Mailchimp’s crumbs.”
Mayura AI
Founded: 2025
The business: Described as “your personal AI workforce,” Mayura offers an array of custom-built AI tools including multi-agent workflows, document analysis, and more. It is targeting small businesses and is currently working with three entrepreneurs and two startups.
Leadership: Founder and CEO Matt Savarino spent nearly six years at Microsoft, most recently as a principal software engineer. He also was a design and frontend development manager at Disney.
Mean VC: “Positioning as a ‘personal AI workforce’ for small businesses is a bold, expansive pitch that could resonate with founders drowning in admin and workflows. But with only a handful of users and a buffet of generic features, Mayura risks being seen as yet another shiny AI sandbox rather than a must-have business tool.”
Skillsheet
Founded: 2025
The business: A candidate-sourcing platform that uses video profiles to surface communication and problem-solving skills. It also performs real-time, privacy-preserving identity verification before any recruiter engagement to prevent fake or misrepresented candidates. The bootstrapped company has a handful of paying customers.
Leadership: CEO Aniket Naravanekar previously led product at Seattle startups avante and CHEQ, and spent more than 11 years at Microsoft. Co-founder and CTO Aditi Bendre was previously a director of engineering at Microsoft.
Mean VC: “Highlighting soft skills and adding real-time identity verification tackles two glaring flaws in traditional candidate sourcing, giving recruiters something they actually complain about daily. Still, video profiles are a double-edged sword — great in theory, but in practice they risk bias, candidate drop-off, and the eternal ‘why not just use LinkedIn with a Loom link?’ problem.”
