Cohort 18’s SF Showcase

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Aloha from Blue Startups!

Cohort 18 spent its last week in Honolulu with the founders of Turno, who went through the program in Cohort 10. The founders also recorded testimonial videos at La Pietra and wrapped up Honolulu with a game night at Chenoa’s house. Here is what Week 10 looked like.

Week 10: Lessons from Turno

Assaf Karmon and Tim Roy, the founders of Turno and Cohort 10 alumni, opened the week on Monday. They shared how Turno got started by giving vacation rental hosts a free scheduling tool, then built its cleaning marketplace on top of it.

That evening Alexi Drouin and David Holt ran an optional improv session to help the founders build skills like pitching and answering questions on the spot.

On Tuesday, each company recorded testimonial videos at the Hawaiʻi School for Girls at La Pietra, a historic campus with views of Waikiki and Diamond Head. It was the cohort’s last content shoot in Hawaiʻi before San Francisco.

On Friday, the week closed with a final potluck at Chenoa Farnsworth‘s home.

Cohort 18 Spotlight Series

LaunchDetect

LaunchDetect Is Tracking Rocket Launches From Space

When a rocket reaches orbit, it can release hundreds of satellites, and for a while no one knows exactly where they are going. LaunchDetect uses satellite imagery to spot launches and track them. CEO Justin Kellum started the work at the SDA TAP Lab, a Space Force program, and CTO Noah Thompson joined after they met at the AMOS conference in 2025. The company has detected more than 270 launches so far.

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LessCAD

LessCAD Is Bringing Physics Into the Design Loop

After a decade building products at Google and Microsoft, Bryan Wan went back to the engineering software he learned on in college and found it had barely changed. He built LessCAD, a browser tool that puts 3D modeling and physics simulation in one place. It is made for small hardware teams that want to test lots of ideas early, before they commit to a design.

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Portfolio News

CivicNexus Named Innovative Tech Company of the Year

CivicNexus (Cohort 18) was named Innovative Tech Company of the Year for 2026 by Pacific Edge Magazine. Pierce Young accepted the award at the magazine’s annual gala. Pierce built the first version after consulting for a lobbying firm and watching teams track state bills by hand, then launched CivicNexus with Seiichi Nagai. The software helps companies find the bills that affect them, follow each one, and submit testimony.

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G-SPACE Pitches in the Meet the Drapers Semifinals

G-SPACE (Cohort 17) is pitching in the Meet the Drapers semifinals on Monday, September 28, at the Milken Institute in Washington, DC. Dr. Ioana Cozmuta will take the stage for the live taping. G-SPACE builds a machine learning platform for microgravity product design.

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Blue Academy’s Entrepreneurship Sprint at WCC with Alexi Drouin

Blue Startups Partners