Seattle’s Newest Startups Take On AI Personas, Climate Data, and Sales Intelligence

Seattle-Area Startups Focus on AI Personas, Sales Intelligence, and Marketing Automation

Several early-stage startups in the Seattle area are making moves in AI-driven sales and marketing solutions. Kyle Lui, general partner at Bling Capital and recent Seattle transplant, shares quick insights on each company's potential and challenges.

Bluepill

• Founded: 2025
• What they do: Bluepill helps companies build AI personas that represent real customers. These personas simulate responses to messaging, surveys, ads, and product ideas to reduce risks before launching.
• Leadership: Ankit Dhawan, founder and CEO, has experience as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Allen Institute for AI, co-founded Virtuelly, and led product teams at Amazon.
• VC View: “Incumbents are sleepy and old, a new winner will emerge in the AI era. But there will be loads of similar competitors battling it out.”

Ecosided

• Founded: 2025
• What they do: Ecosided offers a platform centered on climate-related data, frameworks, and metrics to help businesses convert climate risks into growth opportunities via smarter product and value chain strategies.
• Leadership: CEO Haixia Wang brings senior research roles from ZoomInfo and Skift, while co-founder Vladimir Baranek brings 30+ years of tech experience, including Amazon Web Services.
• VC View: “Climate is hot. Great potential if the product works and can drive value to businesses.”

Flickboom

• Founded: 2025
• What they do: Flickboom automates social media marketing with AI, handling strategy, content creation, and publishing across platforms.
• Leadership: Founder and CEO Yinhan Liu has prior startup experience and roles at Facebook and eBay. Co-founder Shan Huang has engineering leadership experience at Forma Cloud and Artera.
• VC View: “Classic ‘replace agencies with AI’ thesis in a big market. The big question — is it durable or accumulating advantage over time?”

Managerspring

• Founded: 2024
• What they do: Managerspring is a coaching app described as “Duolingo for people management.” It uses AI-assisted role-play to help new managers practice conversations and improve leadership skills. The app is available on iOS, iPad, and Vision Pro.
• Leadership: Tom Langan, founder, previously led product at Meta (Oculus and VR), Hulu, and Microsoft.
• VC View: “Experienced product leader. Historically tough market for venture-scale businesses.”

Proponent

• Founded: 2025
• What they do: Proponent helps B2B marketing and sales teams analyze customer interactions to identify needs and priorities. Their AI learns from successful deals and integrates with tools like Gong, Hubspot, and Zoom.
• Leadership: CEO Prashant Mohite has product management experience at Paxafe and Datafi. Co-founder Mathew Thekkadayil managed teams at Hemmersbach and About You.
• VC View: “Product looks solid. Is selling into PMMs (product marketing managers) a big enough market for venture?”

Sales professionals interested in leveraging AI tools for improved customer insights and automation might find these startups worth watching. For those looking to enhance AI skills relevant to sales and marketing, exploring courses on Complete AI Training can be a practical next step.