This is how the next billion-dollar startups are built.

a16z speedrun is designed for founders who move fastโ€”really fast. Attended the SF Demo Day, and the energy in the room was unreal. Some of these startups are already scaling at breakneck speed.

Here are the founders to watch and the bold ideas theyโ€™re bringing to life:

๐ŸŽฎ ๐—š๐—ฎ๐—บ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด & ๐—จ๐—š๐—–
โ–ซ๏ธ Spekter Games (Taehoon Kim
) โ€“ Turning Telegram into a super app for gaming with Web3-powered monetization
โ–ซ๏ธ Nilo Technologies (Nuno Leiria
) โ€“ AI-native 3D world-building in secondsโ€”straight from your browser
โ–ซ๏ธย Greathorn Games (Ian Dundore) โ€“ Social multiplayer games designed to spark conversations
โ–ซ๏ธ Alpaka Games (Can Aksoy) โ€“ Building the next-gen of hit action mobile games
โ–ซ๏ธ Kitbash Games (Riley Dutton) โ€“ AI-powered game development for everyone
โ–ซ๏ธ Circle Games (Gokturk Balikci) โ€“ Mobile puzzle games built for long-term engagement
โ–ซ๏ธ Figment (Shubha Jagannatha) โ€“ Interactive AI-powered storytelling
โ–ซ๏ธ Intangible (Bharat Vasan, Charles Migos) โ€“ The โ€œCanva for 3Dโ€
โ–ซ๏ธ Clubs Poker (Jon Kaplowitz) โ€“ North Americaโ€™s next big online poker network
โ–ซ๏ธ Edgar (Martin Moon) โ€“ Real-money sweepstakes for F2P gaming
โ–ซ๏ธ Double Dusk (Alexander Mistakidis) โ€“ Viral two-player co-op games

๐Ÿค– ๐—”๐—œ-๐—ก๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ถ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ ๐—œ๐—ป๐—ณ๐—ฟ๐—ฎ & ๐—ฃ๐—น๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ณ๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—บ๐˜€
โ–ซ๏ธ Trophi ai (Mike Winter) โ€“ AI coaching for gaming
โ–ซ๏ธ DeepPrediction (David Schmetterling, Liam Bolling) โ€“ AI-powered user behavior analytics
โ–ซ๏ธ Genway AI (Natan V., Gal Dayan) โ€“ AI-driven user interviews at scale
โ–ซ๏ธ Labyrinth (Neil Garde) โ€“ AI-powered vertical SaaS
โ–ซ๏ธ Blank (Blas Moros) โ€“ The โ€œInstagram for Generative AIโ€
โ–ซ๏ธ FLORA (Weber W., Alex Li) โ€“ AI-native creative workflow automation

๐Ÿ’ฐ ๐—–๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜€๐˜‚๐—บ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ, ๐—™๐—ถ๐—ป๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ต & ๐—ฆ๐—ผ๐—ฐ๐—ถ๐—ฎ๐—น
โ–ซ๏ธ Atorie (Redouane Ramdani) โ€“ The โ€œluxury Temuโ€ for premium goods
โ–ซ๏ธ SweatPals (Salar Shahini, Mandi Zhou) โ€“ The โ€œAirbnb for fitness communitiesโ€
โ–ซ๏ธ Sunflower (Koby Conrad ๐ŸŒป) โ€“ AI-powered addiction recovery toolkit
โ–ซ๏ธ Waveful (Steven Motta ๐Ÿฌ) โ€“ AI-powered Reddit 2.0
โ–ซ๏ธ Coverd (Eric Xu, Albert Wang) โ€“ Gamifying finance by letting users bet against their bills
โ–ซ๏ธ Sitch (Chad (Charles) DePue) โ€“ AI-powered matchmaking
โ–ซ๏ธ Ghosted (Adrien Guilmineau) โ€“ No-filter dating for Gen Z
โ–ซ๏ธ Plots (Tristan Amell) โ€“ A social network for real-life events

๐Ÿš€ ๐—™๐˜‚๐˜๐˜‚๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐—ง๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ต & ๐— ๐—ผ๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜€๐—ต๐—ผ๐˜๐˜€
โ–ซ๏ธ Unbound Technologies (Florian Hoenig) โ€“ Reinventing 3D content creation
โ–ซ๏ธ Darwin (Sanjit Juneja) โ€“ Interactive videos where you control the story
โ–ซ๏ธ Nativ (Ashish Ranjan Jha) โ€“ AI-powered content localization for global markets
โ–ซ๏ธ Talus Robotics (Ryan Benmalek) โ€“ Affordable robotic guide dogs

๐ŸŒ ๐—˜๐—ป๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฝ๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ฒ & ๐—•2๐—•
โ–ซ๏ธ Chronicler (David Duan) โ€“ AI assistant that organizes your self-texted notes
โ–ซ๏ธ Layerpath (Vinay Chandrasekaran) โ€“ AI demo agents replacing human sales calls
โ–ซ๏ธ Outcome (Antoine Merour) โ€“ AI-powered TeamOS for workplace efficiency

Which one catches your eye?


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