— Yifan Zhang, a Seattle-based entrepreneur who previously led real estate startup Loftium, is joining the AI2 Incubator as a managing director.
Zhang co-founded Loftium in 2017. The Seattle startup offered discounts to renters and prospective homebuyers in exchange for renting out a room in a house, among other real estate programs. Flyhomes acquired Loftium earlier this year.
The AI2 Incubator was previously a branch of the Seattle-based Allen Institute for AI (AI2), but broke off into its own separate standalone business last year. It raised a $30 million fund in May.
The incubator’s second fund comes at a key moment for the AI sector, as more companies adopt generative AI technology and investors pour billions into nascent startups.
The incubator’s other managing director is Jacob Colker. Former managing director Bryan Hale stepped down in April, joining Anthos Capital. He remains a venture partner at AI2.
Zhang starts her new role at the AI2 Incubator in February. She also recently became a CEO-in-residence at Techstars Seattle, mentoring a group of CEOs in the accelerator’s latest cohort.
— Anthony Penta, a former Goldman Sachs director, joined Dropbox as a senior director of its AI Center organization. Penta previously worked at Amazon and Microsoft.
— Seattle-based marketing software giant Marchex hired Holly Aglio as chief marketing officer. Aglio previously was CFO at NetCentrics and Govplace.
— Seattle AI development studio Simply Augmented hired Larry Arnstein as CTO and Ashwin Kadaru as vice president of engineering. Arnstein previously worked at Fixie.ai, American Eagle, Apple, and Impinj. Kadaru spent time at Meta and Accenture.
— Seattle-area security startup Chainguard hired Ryan Carlson as president and Dustin Kirkland as vice president of engineering. Carlson previously was CMO at Wiz, and Kirkland was a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Chainguard just this week announced $61 million in venture funding from Spark Capital, Sequoia Capital, Amplify Partners and others.
— Lauren Sato, former CEO of Ada Developers Academy, has joined San Francisco-based Purpose Built venture studio as a partner. Sato recently joined Seattle hardware startup studio Conduit Venture Labs as an entrepreneur-in-residence.
— Ariane Cornell is now vice president and deputy head for in-space systems at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture. She will lead the business unit working to develop Blue Ring, a spacecraft platform designed to facilitate in-space logistics and delivery. Cornell previously served as Blue Origin’s vice president for commercial and international sales — and she also has been a launch commentator for the company’s New Shepard suborbital space missions.
— Mark Little, a veteran energy industry exec, joined the board of General Fusion, a B.C.-based fusion energy company.
— Jeff Prelle joined First Tech Federal Credit Union as chief risk officer. He previously was an exec at Cadence Bank.
— Claire Hummel, a former Valve artist, joined Mead, Wash.-based Cyan.
