Ainsley Harris
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Senior writer @FastCompany. ITP grad. McKinsey alum. Guitar student. Chicagoan. Founder of NYC's first faith + tech meetup group.
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Articles by Ainsley Harris
¿Puede la siembra de nubes combatir la sequía? La startup Rainmaker acaba de recaudar 100 millones de dólares para averiguarlo
Rainmaker, la startup de modificación del clima centrada en generar lluvia y nieve mediante la siembra de nubes, anunció que recaudó 100 millones de dólares en una ronda de financiación Serie B. Inversores como NOA VC, Upfront Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon Capital y Dream Ventures participaron en la ronda. Rainmaker declinó compartir una valoración actualizada junto con la noticia. Antes de esta ronda de financiación, la empresa había recaudado 50.3 millones de dólares en capital de riesgo.
Can cloud seeding fight drought? Startup Rainmaker just raised $100 million to find out
Rainmaker, the weather modification startup focused on generating rain and snow through cloud seeding, announced today that it has raised $100 million in Series B funding. Investors including NOA VC, Upfront Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon Capital, and Dream Ventures participated in the round. Rainmaker declined to share an updated valuation as part of the news. Prior to this round, the company had raised $50.3 million in venture backing.
I fell down the health-maxxing rabbit hole—and crawled my way out
Piles of collection kits and instruction booklets surround my laptop in a manner that would make a lab technician weep. To my left, there’s a package containing a swab of my inner cheek, which will tell me my biological age, a reflection of cellular damage over time. To my right, there are two poop samples from the past few days, the small plastic vials discreetly tucked into envelopes, primed to reveal the state of my gut microbiome.
Silicon Valley startups are about to hand corporate credit cards to AI agents
The typical early-stage startup team used to comprise a pair of founders and a handful of software engineers. Now that founding team is just as likely to include AI agents as it is human employees—and the companies that serve startups are racing to adapt. For Mercury, a popular Silicon Valley banking solution, that shift in team composition has prompted the development of a new feature: AI agent cards, or virtual credit cards that businesses can use to delegate and automate purchasing decisions.
AG1 joins the gummy craze: Why the powder pioneer is suddenly betting on chewable wellness
Who doesn’t love a gummy? Gummies packed with vitamins and minerals have taken over health and wellness aisles, giving consumers a wholesome way to embrace “little treat” culture. These days, you can have your nutrition and your sugar fix, too. Now, the supplement pioneer AG1 is introducing a gummy of its own to this increasingly crowded market. AG1 Essentials Gummies launches tomorrow, packing 50 vitamins and minerals into berry-shaped gummies with a fruity flavor evocative of apple and strawberry.
Loonen and the rise of consumer safety as status symbol
Clara Sieg found inspiration in birds. A venture capitalist with a history of backing consumer-facing brands, Sieg had been increasingly concerned with the consequences of drinking polluted water.
ROBOT, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR
Fast Company | Summer 2026 The company that put millions of drivers on the road now faces a world without them. To survive in the autonomous future, Uber is banking on its super app. Beep beep! PALE SPRINGTIME SUN SKIMS ACROSS LOWER Manhattan's streets and sidewalks as buses groan, jackhammers echo, and commuters hustle. It's a fitting backdrop for Uber's annual product showcase, GoGet, held on this April morning inside the creamy marble confines of the Perelman Performing Arts Center.
Inside Uber’s strategy to avoid a head-on collision with autonomous cars
Pale springtime sun skims across lower Manhattan’s streets and sidewalks as buses groan, jackhammers echo, and commuters hustle. It’s a fitting backdrop for Uber’s annual product showcase, Go-Get, held on this April morning inside the creamy marble confines of the Perelman Performing Arts Center. Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, was hired nine years ago to impose order on the chaos of the company’s wildly aggressive corporate culture.
Inside Uber's strategy to avoid a head-on collision with autonomous cars
The people who trained Tesla’s self-driving AI won’t ride in it Reuters interviewed nine former Tesla data labelers and a former self-driving engineer about their views on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving mode. Seven of the nine data specialists said they would not ride in a Tesla operating on FSD. One said they would not ride in a Tesla robotaxi “if you f**king paid …
AG1’s green with envy over the gummy-ification of wellness
In early online ads, Grüns explicitly positioned itself as “Less expensive than AG1 and much easier to take.” Green powders, the ad said, “taste like dirt.” Another Grüns ad asked “Pills or Gummies? The Choice is Easy.” Why experience the morning friction of mixing a powder or popping a pill, the ads suggest, when you can enjoy a gummy packet on the go? And there’s no need to compromise when it comes to nutritional efficacy, gummy startups say.
Finally, a wearable designed for women approaching menopause
Ali Hewson, like many women, was unprepared for the intensity of perimenopause. “I initially thought I would just grin and bear it, as my mother did,” she says. But the symptoms piled on: brain fog, hot flashes, mood swings, dryness, exhaustion. “One minute you are happy and content, then suddenly you are anxious and irritable followed by intense heat and sweating,” Hewson says. At their worst, her hot flashes were happening hourly.
Finally, a wearable designed for women approaching menopause
Now The suit, filed Thursday, is part of a growing trend of similar cases across the South. The plaintiffs argue that midwives are crucial to address maternity care deserts. Twice a month, Sarah Stokely travels 4½ hours from her home in Rome, Georgia, to work for a week at a birth center in Blountville, …
The most innovative finance companies of 2026
Ramp demonstrated once again this year that helping finance teams save time and money is valuable indeed. Specifically, the startup says that since its 2019 founding it has saved its customers $10 billion and 27.5 million hours of work. Those results have catapulted Ramp to a $32 billion valuation and $1 billion in annualized revenue. Last year’s growth stemmed from Ramp’s swift implementation of AI agents.
TBPN built a media powerhouse by tapping into the ‘internet’s dive bar’
Listen to this ArticleMore info Producers at CNBC wake up in the morning and look at the public markets in order to plan the day’s lineup. John Coogan and Jordi Hays, cohosts of TBPN (Technology Business Programming Network)—a daily talk show devoted to the business of technology—wake up and look at what’s trending on X. And then, they gab. “We cover something like 50 to 100 [topics], rapid-fire,” says Hays.
The most innovative finance companies of 2026
This year’s innovation honorees in finance and personal finance demonstrate how quickly companies around the world are using AI to build products and features that simplify life for their customers. Ramp, at the top of the list, is leading the way. Now worth $32 billion, the fintech unicorn’s tireless focus on saving its customers time and money has pushed it to implement AI agents that dramatically streamline tasks like expense approval.
How Ramp is deploying agentic AI to help contain corporate costs
Ramp’s corporate card and expense management platform have become the go-to option for more than 50,000 businesses. [Images: Millionsphotos/Getty Images; Adobe Stock Stock] Listen to this ArticleMore info Ramp, a financial operations platform known for its corporate card and expense management, measures success in the time and money it helps its 50,000-plus business customers save. In 2025, the company created AI agents for controllers, accountants, and other finance roles.
Zillow CEO: ‘More than half of homebuyers cry during the process.’ AI can fix that
When Zillow launched 20 years ago, the home-buying process happened almost entirely offline. The company’s digital listings, combined with its innovative “Zestimate”—an estimate of a home’s value, based on the kind of data typically only available to real estate professionals—marked a turning point for the housing market. Zestimates weren’t exact representations of value, but they put power back in the hands of prospective buyers (to sellers’ and agents’ chagrin).
My neighborhood is pushing back against sidewalk delivery robots. The fight’s coming to your town next
It’s easy to be charmed by the first delivery robot you see. I was driving with my kids in our Chicago neighborhood when I spotted one out the window last year. It was a cheerful pink color, with an orange flag fluttering at about eye level and four black-and-white wheels. It looked almost like an overgrown toy. When I told the kids that it was labeled “Coco,” they started waving and giggling as it crossed the street.
The hardest startup in America
Augustus Doricko, founder and CEO of cloud-seeding startup Rainmaker, surveys the sky from a sunbaked hillside 5 miles from Utah’s Great Salt Lake. On this balmy Sunday afternoon in late September, the lake is calm, but its serenity belies a potentially catastrophic problem: The Great Salt Lake is shrinking—and is at risk of disappearing altogether. At its peak 40 years ago, the lake covered 2,300 square miles; today, more than 800 square miles of lake bed are exposed.
Exclusive: Fanatics launches a prediction markets app, the first major sportsbook to do so
When it comes to the battle of the prediction markets, which player are you betting on? Fanatics, the global sports platform, is out to prove that sportsbooks will be the emerging industry’s biggest winners. Today, Fanatics is launching a stand-alone predictions market app designed to appeal to the fans who already buy its apparel and collectibles. It’s the first of the major sportsbooks to move into prediction markets—and almost certainly won’t be the last.
Bebês geneticamente modificados já não são mais coisa do futuro
Nossas origens importam? Essa é a pergunta que está no centro da Orchid, uma das novas startups que realizam triagem genômica em embriões humanos. Hoje, cerca de 40% dos ciclos de fertilização in vitro (FIV) incluem algum tipo de teste genético. Mas, na maioria dos casos, trata-se apenas de uma análise básica de anomalias cromossômicas – algo semelhante ao que se obtém em um exame de amniocentese.
THE BABY BLUEPRINT
Genomics startups like Orchid promise healthier children through advanced embryo screening. Do they deliver? By the time my son arrived in the world, both of us dazed and red-faced after laboring through the night in a hospital room, I had already started telling myself his origin story. IT HAD BEGUN NEARLY TWO YEARS PRIOR, WITH A miscarriage, and then another.
The future of investing: Robinhood's tokenised shares explained
Ainsley Harris|Published 21 minutes ago Robinhood cofounder and CEO Vlad Tenev channeled Hollywood glamour last month in Cannes at an extravagantly produced event unveiling of the trading platform’s newest products, including a tokenised shares offering designed to give investors exposure to private companies like SpaceX and OpenAI, as well as public companies like Microsoft and Nvidia.
Bilt to last? Inside the points-obsessed startup that rewards you for paying rent
The night is young when Bilt Rewards founder and CEO Ankur Jain steps inside Manhattan’s ABC Cocina restaurant on a Monday in early spring. Vintage chandeliers glint overhead as the 35-year-old Jain, in jeans and sneakers, makes his way through the crowd, shaking hands, his winsome smile comfortably affixed. We’re here for a recurring comedy show that’s offered to members of Bilt, the loyalty program and payments platform for renters that Jain founded in 2019.
Empresas más innovadoras en finanzas y finanzas personales 2025
Los homenajeados de este año en el sector financiero son reconocidos por ampliar los límites de la industria mediante la adopción de inteligencia artificial, blockchain y otras tecnologías emergentes. Sin embargo, también comparten una característica más tradicional: un enfoque inquebrantable en sus clientes. Encabezando la lista, Nubank consolidó su dominio en el mercado bancario brasileño en el último año mediante una mayor inversión en productos diseñados para familias.
How Brazil's Nubank became the world's third-largest digital bank
Nubank is No. 3 on the list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2025. Explore the full list of companies that are reshaping industries and culture. When Brazilian juggernaut Nubank surpassed 100 million customers last May, it became the first digital bank outside of Asia to reach that scale and the third-largest digital bank in the world. It got there by relentlessly focusing on the practical needs of its customers, including an oft-overlooked banking demographic: teenagers.
Rebecca Yarros publisher Entangled is changing the book industry
Entangled Publishing is No. 50 on the list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2025. Explore the full list of companies that are reshaping industries and culture. “What makes a book a bestseller?” asks Entangled Publishing founder and CEO Liz Pelletier. “You couldn’t read the pages fast enough; you sat up until the wee hours of the night to finish it.
Make Seaweek 1st - 9th March one to remember
Seaweek is coming! Feb 26, 2025 | The Informer | Community, Education, Environment, For Parents, General, Marine BY AINSLEY HARRIS We’re coordinating a week of events to celebrate the moana along with agencies, businesses, and community groups and we’re putting out the call to the community to get behind Seaweek. CURRENT SEAWEEK CALENDAR BUT WE CAN ADD MORE EVENTS Saturday 1 March – Community Beach Day at Buffalo Beach: Learn about coastal ecosystems with games, prizes, and giveaways.
Scoop: Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global-backed Divvy Homes is being sold for parts to Brookfield Properties
Scoop: Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global-backed Divvy Homes is being sold for parts to Brookfield Properties The rent-to-own startup was once valued at nearly $2 billion. BY Ainsley Harris Rent-to-own startup Divvy Homes is being acquired in a fire sale by Charleston, South Carolina-based Maymont Homes, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Maymont, a division of Brookfield Properties, manages a portfolio of single-family rental homes.
Scoop: Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global-backed Divvy Homes is being sold for parts to Brookfield Properties
The rent-to-own startup was once valued at nearly $2 billion. Rent-to-own startup Divvy Homes is being acquired in a fire sale by Charleston, South Carolina-based Maymont Homes, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Maymont, a division of Brookfield Properties, manages a portfolio of single-family rental homes. Source link
Zyn, vapes, and the wild rebranding of nicotine
Zyn, a nicotine product derived from tobacco that looks like a doll-size tea bag and comes in a range of strengths and flavors, had been appearing discreetly along the gumlines of a growing number of public figures for more than a year. The Food and Drug Administration forbids paid tobacco sponsorships in sports and entertainment, but it doesn’t govern unsolicited endorsements like the one from Allen.
Police departments are embracing AI-powered video surveillance. This company is leading the effort
A red Hyundai SUV makes its way through downtown San Francisco on a bright August afternoon. The car looks innocuous, but a day earlier, police had linked it to the break-in of another car and added it to a so-called hot list of wanted vehicles. Now the city’s license plate recognition cameras, or LPRs, are stationed at major intersections, ready and waiting.
Police departments are embracing AI-powered video surveillance. This company is leading the effort
I’ve worked in the creative industry for nearly three decades, and I’ve been sitting between the worlds of in-house and agency for at least 15 …
23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki wants to take the struggling company private—then comes the real work
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing pioneer 23andMe unveiled a new product in May. Cofounder and CEO Anne Wojcicki had long promised that 23andMe would democratize genetics and, in the process, unleash a health revolution based on personalized genomic insights. But the company’s newest feature was decidedly more mundane: Through its telehealth service, 23andMe would start writing prescriptions for erectile dysfunction medication. How the mighty have fallen.
Democrats rely on this platform for grassroots donations—maybe they shouldn't
With democracy on the line yet again in November, millions of progressive voters will do what they’ve been conditioned to do: They’ll open their digital wallets to try to save it. A practice that initially took off among anti–Iraq War protesters in the U.S. in the early 2000s, offering small-dollar donations online has become the default mode by which Democratic-leaning voters engage with causes and candidates up and down the ballot.
Tech bro podcasts are obsessed with alpha men, and it’s dangerous for the rest of us
Jeff Bezos is a busy man. But in December, he found the time—two hours and 11 minutes, to be exact—to talk with Lex Fridman, a computer scientist and host of the Lex Fridman Podcast. Fridman’s podcast is the most popular in the technology category, according to Apple and Spotify. His following on social media—including his own Reddit community, 38,000 strong—extends to more than 8 million people.
This startup helps student debtors move from payments to planning
Premium Co.Design Tech Work Life News Impact Podcasts Video INNOVATION FESTIVAL 360IF360 Login AdvertiseNewslettersHelp CenterCurrent Issue By Ainsley Harris1 minute Read Most companies help their employees save for retirement. But for a generation burdened with student loan debt, paying off those balances is often a higher priority.
The most innovative companies in personal finance for 2024
By Ainsley Harris1 minute Read Cash? Never heard of it. These days, consumers expect their financial services to be instant and digital. The sector’s top performers are meeting this demand with services that feel effortless. Among neobanks, Revolutis this year’s lone honoree. As neobanks generally struggle amid higher interest rates, U.K.-based Revolut continues to expand as it launches feature after feature.
Brex is one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in Finance.
Premium Co.Design Tech Work Life News Impact Podcasts Video INNOVATION FESTIVAL 360IF360 Login AdvertiseNewslettersHelp CenterCurrent Issue By Ainsley Harris1 minute Read Brex was already in the midst of a dramatic reinvention when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in March 2023.
The most innovative companies in finance for 2024
By Ainsley Harris1 minute Read The downturn that many economists expected to see in 2023 has yet to transpire. Even so, businesses are highly attuned to that risk, and the top-performing financial services companies from this past year are taking advantage. There’s Ramp, a spend management platform that has attracted over 10,000 new customers with its pledge to help save finance teams time and money.
Habito is one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies
By Ainsley Harris1 minute Read Last June, U.K.-based mortgage broker Habito made an unusual move: It hired a new CEO who simultaneously became the startup’s biggest shareholder. Ying Tan, an entrepreneur who previously led mortgage advice startup Dynamo, invested his own money in Habito as he took the reins.
Apple Pay Later is the latest installment in its payments success story
Premium Co.Design Tech Work Life News Impact Podcasts Video INNOVATION FESTIVAL 360IF360 Login AdvertiseNewslettersHelp CenterCurrent Issue By Ainsley Harris1 minute Read Apple Pay launched in 2014 with digital wallet technology that could seamlessly manage in-store checkouts, App Store purchases, and transit swipes. While Apple named prominent retailers like McDonald’s and Bloomingdale’s as launch partners, consumer adoption was slow going—at first.
This company gives immigrants credit scores where credit is due
By Ainsley Harris1 minute Read Credit histories don’t typically travel with immigrants across borders, leaving many newcomers without access to financial services. Nova Credit bridges that gap with such tools as income verification and Credit Passport, which translates international credit histories into local-equivalent credit scores. In 2023, Nova Credit focused on expanding to new markets through partnerships in Canada, the U.K., and the United Arab Emirates.
This fintech company is making business banking safer for startups
By Ainsley Harris1 minute Read Before Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse in March 2023, Mercury was best known for providing providing startups with business banking solutions and venture debt. After SVB’s collapse, Mercury took on a new role: startup savior. In the span of a weekend, the company created a new product, Mercury Vault, offering $5 million in FDIC insurance through partner banks and their sweep networks that transparently distribute deposits across banks to garner higher FDIC insurance.
Enable is one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in Finance.
By Ainsley Harris1 minute Read Logistics, a $76 trillion industry still reliant on antiquated technology, has attracted a fleet of modernizing startups. Enable stands out by focusing on an arcane but valuable niche: the B2B rebates that accompany contracts between retailers, distributors, and manufacturers.
Fast Company - Business - Read this story on Magzter.com
Fast Company | March - April 2024 Y Combinator was designed to be a supercondensed version of Silicon Valley. Now that it's at full potency, can it maintain its outsider pose while being the ultimate insiders' network? WITH ONE WEEK UNTIL THE JANUARY KICKOFF OF Y COMBINATOR'S WINTER 2024 STARTUP BATCH, THERE'S A HUSH IN THE PRESTIGIOUS ACCELERATOR PROGRAM'S CAVERNOUS NEW SAN FRANCISCO HEADQUARTERS.
How Y Combinator, champion of ‘little tech,’ became the biggest machine in Silicon Valley
With one week until the January kickoff of Y Combinator’s winter 2024 startup batch, there’s a hush in the prestigious accelerator program’s cavernous new San Francisco headquarters. The only sound, aside from steady rain streaking the windows, is the muffled labor of two YC partners in a makeshift subterranean kitchen, where they are practicing a chicken and dumplings recipe to serve to a group of incoming founders.
How Y Combinator, champion of ‘little tech,’ became the biggest machine in Silicon Valley
By Ainsley Harrislong Read With one week until the January kickoff of Y Combinator’s winter 2024 startup batch, there’s a hush in the prestigious accelerator program’s cavernous new San Francisco headquarters. The only sound, aside from steady rain streaking the windows, is the muffled labor of two YC partners in a makeshift subterranean kitchen, where they are practicing a chicken and dumplings recipe to serve to a group of incoming founders.
The AI safety debate is tearing Silicon Valley apart
By Ainsley Harris3 minute Read It’s not just OpenAI. The long-simmering fault lines within OpenAI over questions of safety with regard to the deployment of large language models like GPT, the engine behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E services, came to a head on Friday when the organization’s nonprofit board of directors voted to fire then-CEO Sam Altman.
Meet the zombie brands: Why Blue Apron, Allbirds, and others are still alive, only different
Premium Co.Design Tech Work Life News Impact Podcasts Video INNOVATION FESTIVALIF360 Login AdvertiseNewslettersHelp CenterCurrent Issue By Ainsley Harris9 minute Read In 2017, Blue Apron bet the farm. With its valuation at $2 billion, its brand sizzling hot, and its IPO imminent, the meal-kit delivery startup snapped up BN Ranch, a network of sustainable meat producers founded by grass-fed-beef pioneer Bill Niman.
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