Forbes released its annual 30 under 30 list today, detailing innovators making waves across the globe. Seven HAX founders made the cut this year, working on everything from making mines safer, to making fashion more sustainable.
Lucas Frye, 28, and Joseph Varikooty, 24
Cofounders of Amber Agriculture
Lucas Frye, who received a bachelor's in agricultural economics and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Joey Varikooty, a 2018 Thiel Fellow who dropped out of the same school, founded Amber Agriculture to help farmers monitor and manage their crops with sensors. Its core technology is a wireless, kernel-like sensor that can flow with grain throughout the supply chain. By detecting moisture or incorrect temperatures, Chicago-based Amber (which has raised $2 million in funding) helps farmers protect grain from spoilage and capture high prices.
HAX first invested in Amber Agriculture in 2017.
Kevin Martin, 26
Kevin Martin, who has a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Colorado Boulder, is cofounder of unspun, a tech-enabled apparel company that uses 3D scans to manufacture perfect-fitting 3D woven jeans for consumers on-demand, eliminating pattern-cutting waste and unsold inventory. He and his cofounders, who are over 30, took unspun through the HAX accelerator and have raised nearly $5 million from groups including The National Science Foundation, Fifty Years, and The Mills Fabrica.
HAX first invested in Unspun in 2018.
Noah Hill, 23 and Daniel Weinstein, 25
More than 1,000 health conditions are tracked by saliva tests. With Lura Health, Daniel Weinstein and Noah Hill have developed wireless, intra-oral, tooth-mounted sensors to enable users to track key diagnostics in oral health with saliva. Its first products focus on tracking acid to monitor tooth decay, while future sensors may be able to monitor allergens, electrolytes, hormones and disease markers.
HAX first invested in Lura Health in 2019.
Matthew Gubasta, 25 and Shelby Yee, 26
Cofounders of Rockmass Technologies
RockMass CEO Shelby Yee, a geological engineer, founded RockMass with Matthew Gubasta, a fellow student at Canada's Queens University, in 2016 to digitize the industry. They're streamlining and improving data collected at underground mines, starting with rock mechanics and making historically dangerous mine work safer and more efficient. Some of the largest global mining companies have adopted the Toronto-based startup's flagship platform, called the Axis Mapper, and they've raised $3.1 million from SOSV, the Canadian government and others.
HAX first invested in Rockmass Technologies in 2017.
