Welcome to MGMT Boston where we try to help thousands of you manage your awareness of top Boston startups, founders, and local builders putting in the work. Glad to have you here!
August Presenting Partners:
TLDR:
Suno Unplugged - is the next biggest emerging Consumer AI brand in the world being built right here in Boston? Suno had the startup community dancing!
AJ Meyer, Co-Founder & CEO at Pickle Robot Company - building robots that load and unload trucks and bringing the Dill Autonomy Engine to market as a standalone platform
Thanks to Cecilia Hermawan for the intro
Shannon Kay, Co-Founder & COO at Topline Pro on Code & Cobblestones
Tim Penasack and Erik Holm, Tadavo - an AI platform spun out of Northeastern for consumer brands that turns conflicting product data into confident decisions about what to actually bring to market
Thanks to Liz Graham for the intro
Cecilia Hermawan the TechParazzi keeps exploring Boston - MassRobotics, RealTime Robotics, MALSI & more
🚀 MGMT Boston 2026 Startup Partners: Blitzy / Suno / HYCU / OnRamp / WHOOP / groundcover
Community Hiring:
Ayble Health is hiring for a number of roles
WorkHero is hiring Senior Software Engineer, AI Full Stack / Senior Software Engineer, Voice AI & Data Infrastructure / Senior Product Manager, AI Agents
Around the Hub on MGMT Boston’s News Feed:
Lovable raises $400M Series C at $13.3B Valuation, expands in Boston
ShipIn (Vertical AI) raises $52M Series B to power the connected ship
HYCU Names Anant Chintamaneni Chief Product Officer to Accelerate AI Resilience Strategy
Apollo Atomics raises $32M Seed to build factory-made nuclear reactors
Blitzy launches Proactive Insights to find code vulnerabilities and batch automates PRs to remediate
Reservoir raises $8M Seed to scale predictive heat pump water heater platform & installation
Codio raises $5M and launches an AI literacy platform for universities
CodeMetal awarded $80M by Uncle Sam to AI-enable War Gaming platform
Upcoming Events:
Thurs, 8/27: Agents & APIs Boston Developer Meet Up
Around the Hub on MGMT Boston’s News Feed
Other Resources:
Code & Cobblestones - alongside my co-host, Will Lehmann at Step Function, we’re going to be bringing you the here & now from top founders & builders here in Boston - Thanks to Justin Obey at Obey Creative for all the hard work on the pod
Open Market and The Art of The Possible - once upon a time in Cambridge, 30 years ago, a buzzy Web 1.0 startup went public with $1.8M in trailing revenue. These are their lessons for the age of AI
MGMT Boston Operators Club - a community and opportunity engine for 125+ Boston based up & coming venture backed operators
Boston Tech Big Board - 2026 Startups to Watch
Is the next biggest emerging Consumer AI brand in the world being built right here in Boston..?
Yeah, I said it!
Suno had the Boston startup community unplugged and dancing to beats from their employees and joined by talented engineers from across the city in Cambridge last week.
This is a team building a different kind of AI company, with millions of consumers, breaking all the rules, and having a ton of fun doing it too.
This is why we love building in Boston. And why you should too!
Cecilia Hermawan caught up with Martin Camacho, Brad Matthiesen, Sam Davison, Claudia D’Adamo, Eke Wokocha & Charlotte Parish (and more) to hear what makes them tick.
Hint: it’s a combo of Jazz, Pop & Rock.
More from MGMT Boston on this team coming in September!
PS - Suno is hiring in Cambridge
Code & Cobblestones, Ep. 7 features Shannon Kay, Co-Founder & CEO at Topline Pro...
In 2025, Shannon and her team raised a $27M Series B to create the growth engine for small businesses. But it took them time to get there!
Will Lehmann & I learned in this convo how Topline Pro began servicing homeowners before realizing that SMBs were a larger opportunity. Talking to customers and all of the constituents around the value chain let them to the realization small businesses really needed their help.
In this convo, you'll learn...
Why Shannon & her team are building Topline Pro's Sidekick around "get work, win work, get paid" instead of the usual SaaS feature list
How a COVID-era side project called Dwelling turned into Topline Pro, a pivot to a bigger opportunity
Why she'd rather a customer never open the app at all, and what "done for you" means when your users are on a ladder, not at a desk
The real risk with AI inside a company, per Shannon: rewarding the wrong behavior, and how Topline Pro's "AI-native employee of the month" tries to fix that
Her advice for founders building in "unsexy" markets: find the investors who already get it before you ever pitch them
Why incrementalism earns trust with some customers, and showing the whole platform earns it faster with others
Give it a watch and tell us what you think!And thanks to Justin Obey at Obey Creative for his partnership in producing the episode
Welcome AJ Meyer, Co-founder and CEO at Pickle Robot Company on this episode of 🔥 The Lantern 🔥
Pickle Robot Company builds robots that load and unload trucks, one of the most physically punishing, highest turnover jobs in logistics.
If you can teach a robot to load and unload a truck, you can teach it to do almost anything!
🗺️ Where is Pickle Robot headed in 2026? 🗺️
This year, Pickle is bringing the Dill Autonomy Engine to market as a standalone platform.
Partners and developers will be able to use the same AI stack Pickle uses internally partners to make robots do things well beyond the dock door.
AJ has been building robots since 2005 at MIT. Two decades later, robots can now use their hands at commercial speed with lots of expanding possibilities for Pickle Robot!
🤔 What has AJ learned building a Physical AI company? 🤔
When building a team, the best performers are the people who want to serve customers with a real product in market, not just push research forward.
With customers, you have to deliver ROI in robotics. On the software side, a lot of AI is still running on vibes. Physical AI does not have that luxury! The robot either pays for itself or it goes back on the truck.
🤝 How can we help Pickle Robot grow here in Boston and around the world? 🤝
Boston has been the center of the robotics universe for his entire career and we need to do more to help build the industry here.
Companies working with companies, university partnerships, and keeping robotics talent here is what will allow us to win in the years ahead!
Pickle Robot is hiring here in Charlestown!
Welcome Tim Penasack, CEO and Erik Holm, Chief Product Officer at Tadavo on this episode of 🔥 The Lantern 🔥
Tadavo is an AI platform spun out of Northeastern for consumer brands that turns conflicting product data into confident decisions about what to actually bring to market.
🔍 What problem is Tadavo solving? 🔍
Roughly 80% of footwear that hits the market fails to generate the revenue brands expect. Unlike software, those sunk costs are physical, they end up in a landfill, not a deleted repo.
Tadavo has a significant body of research behind its proprietary AI model and the platform pulls social & proprietary data together so product teams can make intelligent calls on what consumers will actually buy.
🚀 What is Tadavo building in 2026? 🚀
The team is bringing its first product to market this summer. It's an MVP that lets product teams build product briefs and work through an agent to get the answers they need before they design and develop.
Customers are already live on the platform! The focus for the rest of 2026 is growing that customer base and building a community around Tadavo that the team can learn from.
🤔 What have Tim and Erik learned building at the intersection of commerce and AI? 🤔
Tim points back to Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog memoir. The early Nike team made product calls in a proverbial smoke-filled room with almost no data.
Today brands have more data than ever, and it's in conflict, so they don't trust it. They're right back to making gut calls.
When Allbirds launched a performance running shoe it wasn't positioned for, the footwear assets later sold for $39M. Brands should focus on making great shoes, not on becoming data companies
🤝 How can we help Tadavo grow? 🤝
They’re ready for more conversations with brands.
Small labels to global players, footwear, insoles, athletic, athleisure, apparel, etc.
Tim and Erik want to hear how product teams are using their data, where they aren't, and where it breaks down. If you're on a product team drowning in conflicting signal, reach out!
Cecilia Hermawan, the TechParazzi, has been on hand to visit MassRobotics, RightHand Robotics, MALSI, and more!
Any feedback for us? One thing you liked? One thing you didn’t? Local startups, founders, or builders to highlight? Just reply to this e-mail!
See you next week!
-Matt
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