📺 💼 Issue #127: The Future Of Advertising & Talent Recruiting
A spotlight on the recent launch of Prachie Banthia's new AI-powered interview platform and the successful acquisition of Field Garthwaite's data company IRIS.TV
💬 Welcome to issue #127 of StoryHouse Review
Good morning & happy Thursday.
This week, we highlight some of the latest developments in AI and Claremont startups. Prachie Banthia launched a new recruitment and interviewing platform, Lightscreen AI, to help companies accurately screen technical talent. Field Garthwaite and his data company, IRIS.TV, announced its successful acquisition by Viant Technologies, accelerating its mission to expand Connected TV content identification at scale.
It’s a Claremont world out there. 👇
~ Josh, Miles, Matthew, Pat
👤 Community Spotlight: Prachie Banthia & Lightscreen AI
Prachie Banthia (PO) is the co-founder and CEO of Lightscreen AI, which is building a voice agent for uncheatable tech screens and coding interviews. Their AI interviewer helps technical hiring teams focus on genuinely skilled candidates by working with them step-by-step through dynamic coding problems like a pair programmer, observing their problem-solving process. It then analyzes various signals in real-time to make sure the candidates’ work is genuine.
Previously, Prachie was the VP of Product Management at Series C speech model company Assembly AI, which has built the current SOTA speech transcription models. Before that, she was a Product Manager at Google and Head of Product at RideOS, which was acquired by GoPuff for $115M.
“Our AI can interview on any technical subject. It avoids hallucinations and eliminates bias by justifying feedback with specific examples, and can scale to any volume of candidates. It identifies cheating by monitoring the full feed of keystrokes, video, and audio from the candidate.” - Prachie Banthia
Lightscreen AI recently launched on Y Combinator as part of its F24 batch. Check out their short demo interview on Launch YC. 👇
🚨Claremonster Call-Out: Field Garthwaite & IRIS.TV
Field Garthwaite (PO ‘06) is the co-founder and CEO of IRIS.TV, a content data platform that enables better viewing experiences and advertising outcomes. Before IRIS.TV, Field worked in digital distribution, data architecture, and video for companies including HBO, Universal Pictures, Rubicon Project, and Jukebox TV.
Since inventing the core technology behind IRIS.TV, Field has led the company to engineer the world's most open video data ecosystem, enabling its partners to build scalable solutions on top of its platform, including video-level contextual and brand-suitable ad planning, targeting, and measurement solutions. Since its founding, the company has generated millions of dollars in new revenue for its customers, collaborating with thousands of media companies, data, streaming, and ad tech partners worldwide to power meaningful connections between brands and consumers.
IRIS.TV was recently acquired by Viant Technologies to accelerate its mission of expanding CTV content identification at scale across premium publishers. The company will continue to operate independently, onboarding new publishers, data partners, and ad platforms while providing access to video-level data through their IRIS_ID. Read the full announcement by Viant Technologies.👇
💼 Who’s Hiring?: Speakeasy & Parakeet Health
Sagar Batchu (HMC ‘15) is the CEO and co-founder of Speakeasy – an API DevEx platform that instantly creates SDKs that make API integration easy for your users. Their platform takes the heavy lifting out of providing a great API experience by integrating directly into your GitOps and propagating changes. Speakeasy is leveraging platform engineering, code gen, and LLMs to provide a platform that unburdens teams who are creating, maintaining, and constantly evolving their APIs. Speakeasy recently completed its $15M Series A round led by FPV Ventures, with participation from GV and Quiet Capital. They’re hiring for several open roles on their growing team.
Product Engineer (Remote/SF): especially with experience in platform engineering, developer tools, developer productivity, or infrastructure products.
Solutions Architect (Remote/SF): responsible for ensuring key accounts have an amazing post-sales experience with Speakeasy
Claremont alum Jung Park (HMC ‘89) is the CEO and co-founder of Parakeet Health, an AI voice answering service for healthcare practices that automates repetitive phone tasks like appointment scheduling, billing, and general inquiries. Parakeet’s founding team includes seasoned healthcare industry veterans (One Medical IPO, Doximity IPO, Epocrates IPO) and skilled technology leaders (Microsoft, Twitter, Rippling, PrimerAI). They are backed by top-tier VCs, including StoryHouse, Canvas Ventures, and CoFound Partners. Parakeet is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join their growing team.
Senior Software Engineer (On-site/SF): especially with proven experience designing and implementing scalable, robust backend systems.
Customer Success Manager (On-site/SF): experience in healthcare or a strong understanding of healthcare operations is highly beneficial.
Check out the other ~2,000 open jobs at 280+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 300+ remote jobs, 100+ internships, or 500+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention, Claremonsters!
If any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention StoryHouse Review. Or, if you are an employer looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s must-watch 📺
Claremont grad and Cognitive Scientist-turned-Climate Entrepreneur Pooja Paul (PZ ‘11) recently took the TEDx stage, offering a fresh perspective on why we should be hopeful about our climate future. She leverages her expertise in human behavior to explore how cognitive science can help overcome psychological biases hindering climate action. Pooja is the founder of climate tech startup Habitable Earth.
Claremont entrepreneur Todd Thomas (CMC) is the founder and CEO of WoodChuck.ai, which leverages AI and connected technologies to transform wood waste management into a sustainable cycle, from construction sites to eco-friendly remanufacturing, power generation, and carbon removal. Todd shares WoodChuck’s unique approach and expansion to Grand Rapids, where they are establishing a first-of-its-kind AI-driven biomass processing center.
This week’s Claremont financing 💸
Third Wave Automation, a company specializing in autonomous forklift solutions, recently completed a $27M Series C round led by Woven Capital, with participation from returning investors Innovation Endeavors, Norwest Venture Partners, and Qualcomm Ventures. This recent round brought the company’s total funding to $97M. Their AI-powered Shared Autonomy Platform enables high-reach forklifts to operate autonomously, enhancing warehouse efficiency and safety. Claremont grad Julian Mason (HMC ‘06) is a co-founder of Third Wave Automation.
Surglogs, co-founded by Claremont alum and CEO Peter Zajac (CGU ‘13), is the nation’s leading regulatory and accreditation platform for healthcare facilities. Their AI-powered solution automates policy and procedure creation, links them directly to accreditation standards, and assigns tasks and workflows across the organization, allowing healthcare staff to focus more on patient care and less on administrative tasks. Surglogs recently closed a new investment round supported by existing investors 8VC, Open Ocean, and Credo Ventures.
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🍽️ BTL Snacks:
🍴 Meal Prepping Made Easier….. Edamam announced its partnership with Instacart to enable a seamless grocery shopping experience as a feature of its personalized meal planning solution. This integration allows developers who use Edamam's meal planning API to create personalized experiences where users can buy ingredients directly from Instacart. Edamam, founded by serial Claremont entrepreneur and CEO Victor Penev (PO ‘96), is an industry leader in food and nutrition data solutions for businesses in the health, wellness, and food sectors.
💼 Silent Firing Is The New Quiet Quitting….. Claremont grad George Kailas (CMC ‘08) explores a concerning trend called “Silent Firing” in his recent Fast Company article. George discusses how this strategy involves companies subtly adjusting work environments to potentially encourage employee turnovers, paving the way for automation as AI continues to evolve and reshape the future of work. George is the co-founder and CEO of Prospero.ai – a fintech startup leveraging AI to distill millions of real-time data points on stock performance into simple, actionable insights.
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