From Silicon Oasis Ambassador to Y Combinator: Clean Takes the Next Step

By Kyle Macdonald, COO, Silicon Oasis

One of the most rewarding parts of building Silicon Oasis is watching founders in our community take the next step.

Tejas Gupta, co-founder of Clean and a Silicon Oasis Ambassador, is heading to Y Combinator with Clean.

Tejas has been part of this community for a while. He’s an Arizona State University student, pitched Clean in front of roughly 100 people at a Silicon Oasis Pitch Night earlier this year, and later joined us on Silicon Oasis Spotlight to tell his story.

Now, that journey is taking him to one of the most recognized startup ecosystems in the world.

That matters for Clean, but I think it matters for Arizona too.

Our goal with Silicon Oasis has never been to convince founders they have to choose between Arizona and places like Silicon Valley. We want Arizona founders connected everywhere. Go to San Francisco. Build relationships. Find capital. Meet people who challenge your thinking. Then keep those relationships flowing back into the ecosystem here.

That’s how great technology hubs are built.

Tejas represents exactly the kind of founder community we want to support: ambitious, willing to put himself out there, and committed to building something real. Clean has already evolved significantly as the team has learned from the market—exactly what early-stage companies are supposed to do.

Congratulations to Tejas and the entire Clean team. We’re excited to see where they take it next.

And we’re proud to have Tejas representing the Silicon Oasis community along the way.