Kartikye Mittal

Straight up, let me put you on to Kartikye Mittal, this guy’s the real deal. He’s a YC S21 alum, and honestly, he’s been crushing it since day one. Started out in high school at Singapore American School, then jumped into some heavy-hitting internships at Stanford’s Space Systems Lab, Upwork, Pumpkin INC, and even Google’s moonshot factory, X. That’s where he got his foot in the door with some wild modern tech, working as a research engineer contractor.

Then, he went all in on his own thing. Co-founded Dots back in 2021 with Sahil Hasan, and bam, YC S21. Dots is basically a developer-friendly API that automates payouts for contractors and gig workers. Think ACH, Venmo, CashApp, international payments, tax forms, all handled smoothly. This guy saw a huge problem in the gig economy and decided to build a solution that just works. No bullshit, just clean, developer-friendly payouts infrastructure. That’s pretty much the core of what he’s about: making complex problems simple for the tech folks who are building the future.

Before all that, he was deep in the tech trenches at Athelas, working as a software engineer, which shows he’s got hands-on experience with real-world health tech. His background in electrical engineering and CS from Berkeley, combined with his stint at Stanford, tells me he’s got serious smarts but also a hunger to build stuff that actually matters.

What’s wild is, you can see this guy’s process isn’t just about coding or startups, it’s about fixing real-world pain points. He’s driven by that startup hustle, that “make it easy, make it expandable” mindset. Starting Dots wasn’t just a side project; it’s a reflection of his motivation to create tools that enable others, especially in the gig economy chaos.

So yeah, Kartikye is kind of like the bad situation of tech genius and startup grinder. He’s been through the trenches, worked at some of the top innovation spots, and then jumped into YC to build something that could change how payments work forever. No Cap, this guy’s the real deal, someone to keep an eye on as he keeps pushing boundaries.