# Founder pitch — pixel.fund

Founder: Maya Chen (CEO, ex-Stripe), co-founder Aria Patel (CTO,
ex-Robinhood). YC W26.

## What

A donation-budget tool for solo creators. Set a monthly $ floor for
causes you care about, pixel.fund auto-allocates each dollar across your
chosen orgs (Direct Relief, GiveDirectly, etc.) the moment a Stripe
payout lands. One-line embeddable receipt. 1% platform fee.

## Traction

- 2026-04-01 launched private beta with 14 creators from her newsletter
- 2026-05-15 hit 51 paying creators, $4,200 MRR
- Waitlist of 230 from a single tweet by a tech-Twitter influencer
- Two creators asked about a "team plan" (multi-seat) unprompted

## Status quo

Creators today either (a) write checks ad-hoc and forget about it, or
(b) use Patreon-style platforms where the "cause" is opaque (general
fund). Maya talked to 40 creators in YC interviews — 31 said they "want
to give more but it's mental overhead."

## What Maya wants from office hours

Should she chase the team-plan signal, or go deeper on the solo flow
first? She's two weeks from running out of YC dorm food.
