What Companies Are in the Techstars NYC 2026 Cohort?
Techstars announced its Spring 2026 New York City Accelerator class on June 2, 2026, selecting seven companies working across AI, semiconductor design, fintech, energy, climate technology, enterprise software, and defense.
This page contains the verified list of companies accepted into the 2026 Techstars NYC cohort, along with company descriptions, founder backgrounds, industries, and CEOs. If you're researching newly funded startups, accelerator cohorts, or emerging New York technology companies, this guide focuses exclusively on the 2026 class rather than historical Techstars alumni.
Techstars NYC 2026 Cohort at a Glance
| Companies selected | 7 |
| Program | Techstars NYC Spring 2026 |
| Announcement date | June 2, 2026 |
| Focus areas | Energy, defense, semiconductors, frontier AI infrastructure, and fintech payment rails |
Techstars said it concentrated the Spring 2026 class on areas where durable technical or domain-specific advantages could become increasingly important, including energy, defense, semiconductors, frontier AI infrastructure, and regulated fintech payment rails.
The Techstars NYC Spring 2026 cohort
| Company | What it does | Industry | CEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| AnalogCraft | AI-driven chip design that compresses semiconductor development timelines | Semiconductor AI | Alex Gilman |
| Arcticar | Intelligent energy systems for the cold chain, replacing diesel with automated electric cooling and batteries | Climate & Energy | Jim Castelaz |
| BuiltBlock | On-demand workspaces that automate workflows and dashboards for B2B customer-facing teams | Enterprise Software | Henry Cook |
| Chain | Helps solopreneurs charge, collect, and move money directly inside WhatsApp | Fintech | Melina Cruz Villafaña |
| Papr | Graph-native retrieval infrastructure for AI agents with policy and auditing built in | AI Infrastructure | Shawkat Kabbara |
| Power Dime | Digital infrastructure for data-center energy procurement | Energy | Harleen Sindhu |
| QLUU | Autonomous, hardware-agnostic AI designed to protect critical infrastructure from drone and missile threats | Defense AI | Arkadiy Okhman |
Industry labels above are descriptive classifications for easier browsing and are not presented as official Techstars category assignments.
Company profiles
AnalogCraft
Semiconductor AI · CEO: Alex Gilman
AnalogCraft is building an AI-driven chip design platform designed to compress semiconductor development timelines from months to weeks. CEO Alex Gilman has more than 20 years of experience designing high-performance chips, including work in fiber-optic communications at Maxim and DNA-sequencing chips at Roche. Techstars says the CTO has also taken multiple semiconductor products from definition through high-volume production.
Arcticar
Climate & Energy · CEO: Jim Castelaz
Arcticar is building an intelligent energy platform for the cold chain, replacing diesel-powered refrigeration with automated electric cooling and batteries. CEO Jim Castelaz previously founded an electric truck company that raised $200 million and later went public. Techstars says Arcticar's co-founder and CFO has served as CFO of three deep-tech companies valued at more than $500 million and has led three IPO processes.
BuiltBlock
Enterprise Software · CEO: Henry Cook
BuiltBlock is building on-demand workspaces that automate workflows and dashboards for B2B customer-facing teams. Techstars describes CEO and co-founder Henry Cook and the company's leadership as Datadog alumni with experience working on customer-facing teams.
Chain
Fintech · CEO: Melina Cruz Villafaña
Chain helps solopreneurs charge customers, collect payments, and move money directly inside WhatsApp. Techstars says Chain's founders have built and launched products inside three fintech unicorns in Mexico. The company's co-founder previously designed financial products serving millions of users at Stori and Kueski.
Papr
AI Infrastructure · CEO: Shawkat Kabbara
Papr is building graph-native retrieval infrastructure for AI agents, with policy and auditing built into the platform. Techstars says Papr's CEO built the AI action layer at Apple that shipped to more than a billion devices, while his co-founder and brother built commerce infrastructure at Shopify and runs r/RAG, a community of approximately 70,000 engineers. Techstars also says Papr ranked #1 on Stanford's STaRK retrieval benchmark, achieving 92% accuracy versus a 58% baseline.
Power Dime
Energy · CEO: Harleen Sindhu
Power Dime is building an end-to-end digital platform for data-center energy procurement, with the goal of reducing procurement cycles from months to weeks. CEO Harleen Sindhu has 19 years of experience in energy and previously led power procurement for AWS data centers across EMEA. Techstars also says she was part of the founding team of Shell New Energies.
QLUU
Defense AI · CEO: Arkadiy Okhman
QLUU is building autonomous, hardware-agnostic AI designed to protect critical infrastructure by intercepting drone and missile threats. CEO Arkadiy Okhman is a former transportation hardware designer with a prior exit. Techstars says QLUU's CTO has FBI counter-intelligence experience and two prior exits, while its CSO is a lieutenant colonel in Army Special Forces with 30 years of defense experience.
Industry breakdown
The seven companies can be grouped into the following descriptive sectors:
| Industry | Companies |
|---|---|
| AI Infrastructure | Papr |
| Semiconductor AI | AnalogCraft |
| Climate & Energy | Arcticar |
| Energy | Power Dime |
| Fintech | Chain |
| Enterprise Software | BuiltBlock |
| Defense AI | QLUU |
These are descriptive industry classifications based on what each company builds; they are not necessarily official Techstars category assignments.
At a broader level, Techstars describes the class as concentrated in energy, defense, semiconductors, frontier AI infrastructure, and deep fintech payment rails in regulated markets.
Who are the CEOs of the Techstars NYC 2026 companies?
The CEOs of the seven companies in the Spring 2026 Techstars NYC cohort are:
- AnalogCraft: Alex Gilman
- Arcticar: Jim Castelaz
- BuiltBlock: Henry Cook
- Chain: Melina Cruz Villafaña
- Papr: Shawkat Kabbara
- Power Dime: Harleen Sindhu
- QLUU: Arkadiy Okhman
Why this cohort matters
The Spring 2026 class is concentrated in areas where technical expertise, proprietary infrastructure, regulated-market knowledge, or specialized domain experience can create defensible advantages.
The seven companies cover semiconductor design, AI retrieval infrastructure, energy procurement, electric cold-chain systems, fintech payments, enterprise workflows, and defense technology.
Techstars says its selection process for this class focused on moats that become harder to replicate over time rather than easier, including frontier hardware, regulated payment rails, and years of domain experience embedded in products.
How we built this list
This directory was compiled primarily from the official Techstars Spring 2026 cohort announcement and Techstars program materials. Founder backgrounds, headquarters, and industry classifications were verified against official sources wherever available.
The companies on this page were discovered using Agent Jesse, which searches the live web for newly published startup announcements and accelerator cohorts.
Note: Every company included here was then manually verified against the official Techstars announcement before publication.
Frequently Asked Questions
What companies are in the Techstars NYC 2026 cohort?
The Techstars NYC Spring 2026 cohort consists of seven companies: AnalogCraft, Arcticar, BuiltBlock, Chain, Papr, Power Dime, and Qluu.
How many companies are in the Techstars NYC 2026 cohort?
Techstars selected 7 companies for its Spring 2026 New York City Accelerator.
When was the Techstars NYC 2026 cohort announced?
Techstars announced the Spring 2026 NYC class on June 2, 2026.
What does each Techstars NYC 2026 company do?
AnalogCraft builds AI-driven semiconductor chip design tools; Arcticar builds intelligent energy systems for cold-chain logistics; BuiltBlock automates workflows and dashboards for B2B customer-facing teams; Chain enables payments and money movement for solopreneurs through WhatsApp; Papr builds graph-native retrieval infrastructure for AI agents; Power Dime builds digital energy procurement for data centers; QLUU builds autonomous AI for protection against drone and missile threats.
Who are the CEOs of the Techstars NYC 2026 companies?
The CEOs are Alex Gilman (AnalogCraft), Jim Castelaz (Arcticar), Henry Cook (BuiltBlock), Melina Cruz Villafaña (Chain), Shawkat Kabbara (Papr), Harleen Sindhu (Power Dime), and Arkadiy Okhman (QLUU).
What industries are represented in the Techstars NYC 2026 cohort?
The cohort includes companies working in semiconductor AI, climate and energy, enterprise software, fintech, AI infrastructure, energy, and defense AI. At the broader sector level, Techstars describes the class as focused on energy, defense, semiconductors, frontier AI infrastructure, and regulated fintech payment rails.
Is every company in the Techstars NYC 2026 cohort headquartered in New York City?
Not necessarily. The 'NYC' designation refers to the Techstars New York City Accelerator program. It should not be interpreted as a claim that every company in the cohort is headquartered in New York City.
Is the Techstars Workforce Development Accelerator part of the Techstars NYC 2026 cohort?
No. The Workforce Development Accelerator is a separate Techstars program with its own company roster. Companies selected for that program should not be counted among the seven companies in the Techstars NYC Spring 2026 cohort.
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