Zach Yadegari has raised USD 10 million for Persona, his new AI assistant startup. He got there after 15 universities rejected him as a teenager. Zach Yadegari is 19 years old and is already on his second major venture.
The round was led by Vine Ventures. Cory Levy, founder of Z Fellows, and Collective Global also participated, according to TechCrunch.
From 15 College Rejections To A Six-Figure Exit
Zach Yadegari grew up in Long Island, New York, and started learning computer programming at the age of seven. He served as president of his school’s robotics club and won a research competition for a prosthetic-hand feedback system.
In his teens, he built Totally Science, a website that let students play games otherwise blocked on school networks. He sold the platform for around USD 100,000 when he was just 16.
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Last year, Zach Yadegari said 15 of the 18 universities he applied to had turned him down. Harvard, Yale and Stanford were among them, even though he had a 4.0 GPA and an ACT score of 34. He enrolled at the University of Miami instead.
Cal AI And The MyFitnessPal Deal
In 2024, Zach Yadegari co-founded Cal AI, an app that estimates the calorie content of a meal from a photograph. It cut out the chore of logging food by hand.
In March 2026, MyFitnessPal announced that it had acquired Cal AI for an undisclosed amount. The app had crossed 15 million downloads in two years. It generated more than USD 30 million in annual revenue, TechCrunch reported.
Zach Yadegari left MyFitnessPal in June and moved straight into his next project. That decision led to Persona and the USD 10 million round now behind it.
What Persona Does And How It Plans To Grow
Persona is a personal AI assistant built to help users manage everyday tasks. It is currently in beta on iMessage and has picked up a few thousand users, Zach Yadegari told TechCrunch.
The company plans to launch a USD 179 wearable device in December. The device is activated by a button press or a wrist movement rather than continuous listening.
Zach Yadegari has said Persona will not sell users’ conversations to advertisers. Sponsored shopping recommendations will be part of the business model instead.
For a founder who was turned down by 15 universities two years ago, the numbers now tell a different story. The next test for Zach Yadegari is whether Persona can hold on to user trust in a crowded AI market.