Founder, Vellum - Akash Sharma | Ep. 23

Akash Sharma is the founder and CEO of Vellum, a Y Combinator–backed developer platform launched in 2023 that helps engineering teams build production‑quality LLM (large language model) applications. He conceived Vellum after working extensively with GPT‑3 since its beta in 2020 and realizing how difficult it was to bring AI prototypes into reliable production.

Prior to founding Vellum, Akash earned his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley and spent five years at McKinsey’s Silicon Valley office focusing on technology strategy and operations. Under his leadership, Vellum quickly raised seed funding from YC, Rebel Fund, Pioneer Fund, and Eastlink Capital, and later secured a $20 million Series A as of July 2025. With Vellum, he’s delivering the tooling and methodologies needed to bridge the gap from AI experiments to scalable, robust applications.

The Collective Intelligence Community Podcast by the AI Collective brings the brightest minds in AI to the table to discuss the field’s most pressing topics! Each interview provides a unique perspective on this industry, providing sharp insights and informed commentaries shared to our growing community of 70,000+ founders, funders, and thought leaders.

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