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Vellum

YC W23

New York City, US · Founded 2023 · 23 employees · 17 known investors

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Vellum builds AI development tools and platforms for teams building AI applications. The company focuses on helping customers navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape through products and expertise.

Also known as Vocify Inc. · Vocify, Inc. · Vocify

AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareFuture of WorkUnited States of AmericaAmerica / CanadaPartly Remote

Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (W23)

Vellum was founded in 2023 by Akash Sharma, Sidd Seethepalli, and Noa Flaherty.

ASAkash Sharma
Akash SharmaCEO and FounderAkash Sharma spent five years at McKinsey's Silicon Valley office before working at Dover (YC S19) for over two years, where he and his co-founders built production applications of large language models. He is now co-founder of Vellum, which provides MLOps tooling for language models.
SSSidd Seethepalli
Sidd SeethepalliCTO & FounderSidd Seethepalli was a founding engineer at Dover, an S19 startup. He is now at Vellum (W23).
NFNoa Flaherty
Noa FlahertyCTO & FounderNoa Flaherty is an MIT-educated engineer who previously worked on DataRobot's MLOps team and spent 2+ years at Dover (YC S19) building production LLM applications. At Vellum, Flaherty co-founded a platform providing MLOps tooling for large language models.
JC
John CappielloFounder
JM
Julianna MuirFounder
AK
Anita Kirkovska

Investors · 17

Invest In Datalisted by Invest In Data$150K – $300K

How we know: Invest In Data's portfolio page · Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Pioneerlisted by PioneerToronto, Ontario

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · pioneerfund.vc · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Rebel Fundlisted by Rebel FundSan Francisco · $100K – $5M

How we know: funding news · techcrunch.com · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Y Combinator's founder network · rebelfund.vc · Not right? Tell us

Twenty Two Ventureslisted by Twenty Two VenturesPalo Alto · $50K – $250K

How we know: the VCSheet dataset · Y Combinator's founder network · twentytwo.vc · Not right? Tell us

Y Combinatorlisted by Y CombinatorSan Francisco · $500K

How we know: the Y Combinator directory · funding news · techcrunch.com · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

1Sharpe VenturesreportedPiedmont · $500K – $2M

How we know: open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Acrew CapitalreportedSan Francisco · $1M – $15M

How we know: a partner's Signal profile · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Alloy FundreportedSan Francisco · $10K – $200K

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Andreessen HorowitzreportedMenlo Park · $500K – $50M

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

BO LE VENTURESreportedGlen Head

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Flourish VenturesreportedSan Francisco · $100K – $5M

How we know: a partner's Signal profile · Not right? Tell us

Formulate VenturesreportedSan Francisco

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Leaders FundreportedToronto · $20M

How we know: a partner's Signal profile · Y Combinator's founder network · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Orange CollectivereportedDanville

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Socii CapitalreportedSan Francisco

How we know: the VCSheet dataset · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

U&I VenturesreportedSan Francisco · $250K – $600K

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Funding

SEC filings, press & company announcements

$20M disclosed across 1 of 3 rounds · 2023–2025

Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.

The YC application· Winter 2023 batch

Alumni Q&A

How did your company get started? (i.e., How did the founders meet? How did you come up with the idea? How did you decide to be a founder?)
The founders met while working together for over two years at Dover (YC S19), where they built production LLM use cases. Noa and Sidd are MIT-trained engineers who previously worked on DataRobot's MLOps team and Quora's ML Platform team, and Akash spent five years at McKinsey's Silicon Valley office. While building user-facing LLM applications with GPT-3 and Cohere, they repeatedly had to construct internal tooling to compare models, fine-tune them, and track performance, which led them to build such tooling as a product.

Summarized from the founders' answers on their Y Combinator profile.

Images

Vellum photo

Founder mafia

3 people who came through Vellum went on to found or lead other companies.

Collin WallaceSeed InvestorFounded ZeroStorefrontGideon HaydenInvestor and Board MemberFounded UpwindAkash SharmaFounderFounded Dalvoy

Related companies · 8

DataCampDataCamp is a learning platform for teams that teaches data and AI skills through hands-on coursework accessible via web browser and mobile app. It serves enterprise customers and development teams seeking to build technical capabilities.
Hugging FaceHugging Face is a collaboration platform that hosts and provides access to machine learning models, datasets, and applications. It offers both open-source tools for the ML community and paid compute and enterprise solutions for teams building AI applications.
OpenAIOpenAI is an AI research and deployment company focused on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) with emphasis on safety and beneficial outcomes for humanity.
LLM Statsllm-stats.com provides open, reproducible evaluation and benchmarking infrastructure for large language models and AI systems. The platform aggregates 200+ benchmarks and enables performance comparisons across frontier AI models to support informed decision-making by researchers, enterprises, and model developers.
ZapierZapier provides a platform for connecting AI models and agents to workflows and business applications, enabling teams to automate tasks across over 9,000 apps without coding. The platform serves enterprises, operations teams, and businesses of all sizes looking to deploy AI-driven automation for lead capture, customer support, employee onboarding, and other business processes.
OpenRouterOpenRouter operates an AI gateway that allows developers to access and compare hundreds of language models from multiple providers in a single platform. The service eliminates vendor lock-in while offering improved pricing, uptime, and reliability for companies and developers.
OnyxOnyx is an open-source application platform for large language models that enables teams to leverage any LLM while maintaining data transparency and customization. The platform integrates internet search, internal knowledge connectors, code execution, and model context protocol integrations to provide enterprise and startup teams with flexible AI deployment options.
n8nn8n is a visual and code-based workflow automation platform that enables technical teams to build, connect, and deploy AI agents and integrations with flexible deployment options ranging from on-premise to cloud infrastructure.

Companies working in the same space as Vellum.

Legal entities · 2

corporate structure
Vocify Inc.
Vocify, Inc.

In the news

Vellum for Agentsycombinator.com · Jan 2026Vellum Raises $20M in Series A Fundingfinsmes.com · Jul 2025Announcing our $20m Series Avellum.ai · Jul 2025Vellum Workflows – Quickly prototype and deploy AI chainsycombinator.com · Aug 2023Prompt engineering startup Vellum.ai raises $5M as demand for generative AI services scales | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com · Jul 2023Our favorite startups from YC's Winter 2023 Demo Day — Part 2techcrunch.com · Apr 2023Vellum - Build production-worthy LLM applicationsycombinator.com · Feb 2023

Frequently asked questions

What does Vellum do?
Vellum builds AI development tools and platforms for teams building AI applications. The company focuses on helping customers navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape through products and expertise.
Who founded Vellum?
Vellum was founded by Akash Sharma, Sidd Seethepalli, Noa Flaherty in 2023.
Who are Vellum's investors?
Vellum's investors include Eastlink Capital Partners, Invest In Data, Pioneer, Rebel Fund, Twenty Two Ventures, Y Combinator, 1Sharpe Ventures, Acrew Capital and 9 more.
How much funding has Vellum raised?
Vellum has disclosed $20M raised across 1 of its 3 known rounds.
Where is Vellum headquartered?
Vellum is headquartered in New York City, US.