Blue Startups

08/28/2026

Blue Startups Cohort 18 pitches one week from today. 12 companies take the stage at the Entrepreneurs Sandbox on Friday, September 4, the capstone event of Hawaii Tech Week.

NatureMe - Lama Masri and Evan Rapoport
Nice Industries - Jessica Greenwalt
Trajectory - Justin Bailey, Ben Brostoff, and Reece Denzel
The Travel Nanny - Beverly Yip
Paws Abroad - Marisa Hoskins and Adrian Hoskins
CivicNexus - Seiichi Nagai and Pierce Young
Pacific Hybreed - Melissa DellaTorre
Lu'uLive - Matthew Feeley
Manai - Frank Schmidt
LessCAD (Matter Manifest) - Bryan Wan
Wander - Vincenzo Mazzoni and Kayla Scheffler
LaunchDetect - Noah Thompson and Justin Kellum

Blue Startups Cohort 18 Honolulu Demo Day
📅 Friday, September 4, 3:00 to 6:00 PM
📍 Entrepreneurs Sandbox, 643 Ilalo St, Honolulu
🔗 https://luma.com/r4pzlr4z - Free (Waitlist)

08/11/2026

Blue Startups is Hawaiʻi's Premier Startup Accelerator. Founded in 2012. Women-led. 12 weeks in HI + SF. Up to $250K in funding. 150 companies. 250+ mentors. 400+ investors. $1B follow-on capital. Top 20 US by TechCrunch.

Sector: Tech, Travel, Gaming, Sustainability, AI, Space, and Ocean
Honolulu Demo Day - September 4, 2026 @ Hawaii Tech Week
San Francisco Mixer - October 6, 2026 @ SF Tech Week

Cohort 18 - Startups and Founders

NatureMe - Lama Masri, Evan Rapoport
Nice Industries - Jessica Greenwalt
Trajectory - Justin Bailey, Ben Brostoff, Reece Denzel
The Travel Nanny - Beverly Yip
Paws Abroad - Marisa Hoskins, Adrian Hoskins
CivicNexus - Seiichi Nagai, Pierce Young
Pacific Hybreed - Melissa DellaTorre
Lu'uLive - Matthew Feeley
Manai - Frank Schmidt
LessCAD (Matter Manifest) - Bryan Wan
Wander - Vincenzo Mazzoni, Kayla Scheffler
LaunchDetect - Noah Thompson, Justin Kellum

Co-founders: Chenoa Farnsworth, Maya Rogers, Henk Rogers
Interns: Banks Vadeboncoeur, Akira Iwata, Nathan Li
Team: David Holt, Alexi Drouin

Mahalo! 💙

08/09/2026

08/09/2026

Happy Birthday, Chenoa! Here is what we believe...
Hawaiʻi would not have a tech industry without her.

Chenoa Farnsworth cofounded Hawaii Angels in 2002 with Rob Robinson, and Blue Startups in 2012 with Maya Rogers and Henk Rogers. For 24 years she has been building the tech industry here in Hawai’i. Her personal mission is to put female founders on the stage, here in Hawaiʻi and around the world.

This past year alone:

- East Meets West 2026 was the biggest event yet. 500+ attendees, 150+ founders, 70+ investors, 50+ speakers.
- Chenoa took the Meet the Drapers stage with Tim Draper and Marc Benioff, and the room gave her a roaring ovation.
- She hosted the women's breakfast at EMW with Ashley Lukens, with over 100 women leaders from all over the world.
- Her episode on The HumanizeHer Podcast with Erica Lockheimer went viral with almost 500,000 views on YouTube.
- And she just launched Cohort 18, 12 companies out of +800 applications, to pitch at Demo Day at Hawaii Tech Week.
- Most importantly, she was awarded the world famous Hawaii Angels Cup for her lifetime of contributions :)

Mahalo from the team, David Holt and Alexi Drouin, and from the entire Blue ʻOhana, all the founders, mentors, and investors building alongside her.

Have an amazing day, Chenoa. Mahalo! 💙

08/05/2026

Cohort 18 has landed in Honolulu! The 12 Blue Startups companies are building towards Demo Day. Here's what they have been up for the last two weeks....

Week 1: Kickoff and Customer Discovery

We started with a welcome from Chenoa Farnsworth, Managing Director of Blue Startups, and Maya Rogers, CEO of Tetris. David Holt, Program Director, walked the teams through the tools, resources, and support available to them throughout the program.

Chenoa led the first session on customer discovery and encouraged founders to spend time understanding the problem before jumping too quickly into building. By that same afternoon, the cohort was already out conducting interviews and hearing directly from potential customers.

Later in the week, Patrick Lee, co-founder of Rotten Tomatoes, led his FOCUS session around choosing one feature, one category, and one market. His advice was easy to remember: be a spoon or a fork, not a spork.

Neil Shah of Carta wrapped up the week with a session on cap tables, SAFEs, convertible notes, valuation caps, side letters, and dilution.

Week 2: Leverage, Signal, and the First 10 Customers

Tey Bannerman, Human-Centred AI Advisor at McKinsey & Company, joined us from London to talk about building strong AI products. He shared the importance of owning a full workflow, creating switching costs, and making the technology feel seamless within the product.

Meredith Vaish, Leadership Coach at Pause Box, led a thoughtful conversation on how founders respond under pressure. She walked through the Pleaser, the Prover, and the Perfectionist, along with ways to recognize and move through each pattern.

Ben Yuan, who leads global go-to-market at Google Cloud, closed the week with a session on how early-stage startups can win. His reminder to the cohort was that the first 10 customers provide early proof that the problem is worth solving and that people are willing to trust your solution.

It has been such a fun start to the in-person portion of the program. The founders are asking thoughtful questions, supporting one another, and already making progress.

Next stop: Demo Day at Hawaii Tech Week on September 4, followed by SF Tech Week in San Francisco.

07/08/2026

Blue Startups Cohort 18 starts soon... Meet the two people running it.

Chenoa Farnsworth co-founded Blue Startups in 2012 and leads the firm as Managing Partner. 17 cohorts later: 150+ portfolio companies, $1B+ in follow-on capital, and a Top 20 US accelerator ranking from TechCrunch.

David Holt is Blue Startups' Program Director. Each founder's 12 weeks in the accelerator run through him: every event, class, and session, plus the 250+ mentor network, office hours, all the way to Demo Day.

And of course, none of it exists without Henk Rogers and Maya Rogers, who co-founded Blue Startups with Chenoa Farnsworth. The team behind Tetris bet on Hawaiʻi founders and startups more than 14 years ago.

Up next... a new cohort of founders here on Oʻahu. Follow Blue Startups, Chenoa Farnsworth, David Holt, and Alexi Drouin for more behind-the-scene content on our Cohort 18 startups as we announce them.

07/06/2026

Blue Startups Demo Day is back at Hawaii Tech Week! HTW is 5,000+ people, 50+ events, 25+ venues, and the full calendar is live today. Check it out now at https://hawaiitechweek.com/calendar

HTW 2026 is a full week (Aug 31 – Sep 6) of founder, investor, and operator tech events across Honolulu, Hawai’i. Blue Startups is proud to sponsor it and for our Demo Day to be its capstone event.

📅 Friday, September 4
🕒 3:00 to 6:00 PM HST
📍 Entrepreneurs Sandbox

Cohort 18 will take the stage to pitch investors, mentors, and leaders from Hawaiʻi and beyond. These startups are building across travel, gaming, AI, software, sustainability, health, and ocean tech.

This event sells out every year. Mark to Date and RSVP early. After the pitches, walk across the street to the Official HTW Mixer at 1938 Indochine for more networking, pupus, and drinks with the community.

RSVP → https://luma.com/r4pzlr4z

06/22/2026

From Hawai’i to Amazon, Williams-Sonoma, and PG&E, these 3 Blue Startups alumni accelerated straight to the biggest names in their industries.

From Talent Marketplace to Amazon's First Partner

Instant Teams (Cohort 11). Liza Rodewald and Erica McMannes built a marketplace that connects military spouses with flexible, remote careers. A $1.5M seed right after the program, then a $13M Series A led by Tiger Global. When Amazon launched its military-spouse remote work program, Instant Teams was its first hiring partner.

Where Williams-Sonoma, Inc. Send Their Returns

LiquiDonate (Cohort 14). Disney Petit,'s platform routes retail returns and excess inventory to nonprofits and schools instead of the landfill. Room & Board, Williams-Sonoma, and Liquid Death send their returns through it. It raised a $3.75M seed led by Laconia Capital and won a 2026 NRF VIP Award for Supply Chain Innovation.

A Home-Energy Coach Partnering with PG&E

Maiven Energy (Cohort 16). Jacqueline Hall spent 14 years inside the utility world before she built Maiven, an AI home-energy assistant that helps utilities hit their decarbonization targets without drowning in manual program paperwork. Now she sells back into the same industry she came from, this time on the other side of the table.

This is what building from Hawaiʻi at Blue Startups looks like!

06/09/2026

Chenoa Farnsworth, sat down with Ashley Lukens, and Wren Wescoatt on the Pilali Podcast to talk story about the future of Hawaiʻi's economy.

- Let's Diversify Hawaiʻi's economy beyond tourism.
- The real value is access to our network, not the check.
- We want a hundred zebras, not one billion-dollar unicorn.
- Revenue-based funding for companies grow without an exit.
- Every cohort we run is at least more than half female founded.
- Ocean tech in Hawai’i is the bet, not to build another Silicon Valley.

Mahalo to the Pilali Podcast team at Funder Hui for telling the stories of the people building Hawaiʻi's future. The episode is live now. Give it a listen!

Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJbYrlKlPgU

06/01/2026

We received more than 600 Applications to Cohort 18!

Last year, we accepted only the top 2% into our cohort, and more than 60% of our startups were founded or led by women. This year, with over 600 startups applying to Blue Startups, we want to raise the bar even higher.

The early read is what we hoped for: a strong showing by women founders and teams in our focus sectors (AI, Sustainability, Ocean Tech, and Travel). Now, founders are ready to come build in Hawaiʻi for the summer.

Blue Startups now has a 3-tier investment program:

25,000 → Pre-revenue
$50,000 → Post-revenue
$100,000 → Significant traction

Plus up to $250,000 in total startup funding.
As always, our equity stake is flexible via SAFE.

Did you miss the deadline? You can still apply.
https://www.bluestartups.com/apply/

We do review late applications when we have the time. We cannot promise the same timeline or the full process we give to on-time applicants, but it’s better to apply late than never.