TiE Women names winners of Open Mic Night

TiE Women crowned Rashmi Raghavendra of Dionysus Healthcare as first-place winner of its Open Mic Night, with Neha of Skeptics.ai and Gayathri of GeoProspex.ai sharing second place. The Seattle event spotlighted women founders through story-driven presentations instead of traditional investor pitches.

Why it matters: - Open Mic Night gave women entrepreneurs a nontraditional stage to explain what they are building, why it matters, and what help they need. - The event also connected founders with investors, customers, and partners who can help move ideas from concept to scale. - The three winning startups focused on women’s health, compliance automation, and real estate technology, showing the range of problems women founders are tackling.

What happened: - TiE Women announced the winners of its Open Mic Night in Seattle on Oct. 2, 2026. - Rashmi Raghavendra, co-founder and CEO of Dionysus Healthcare, won first place. - Neha, founder of Skeptics.ai, and Gayathri, founder of GeoProspex.ai, shared second place. - The event replaced a conventional pitch format with an open mic for founders to share stories, challenges, ideas, and ambitions.

The details: - Rashmi Raghavendra is building myLuma, a diagnostic technology designed to predict a woman’s risk of postpartum depression during pregnancy. - Dionysus Healthcare is working across women’s health, mental health, AI/ML, epigenetics, and diagnostics. - The company is raising its first $5 million seed round. - Dionysus Healthcare is seeking introductions to healthcare systems, OB/GYN practices, and women’s health organizations interested in earlier postpartum depression risk detection. - Neha is building Skeptics.ai, an AI-native managed services platform designed to automate SEC and SOX compliance for public and pre-IPO companies. - Neha is a dual-certified CPA and CA with 30 years of domain expertise. - Skeptics.ai has launched its proof of concept and has two customers validating the platform. - Neha is seeking introductions to CFOs and Chief Audit Executives, along with investors aligned with the company’s vision. - Gayathri is building GeoProspex.ai, an AI platform designed to reduce site-feasibility research for real estate development from days to minutes. - Gayathri drew on experience at Bing and Microsoft Search to apply agentic AI to a fragmented development workflow. - GeoProspex.ai already has revenue and 13 paying customers, including two enterprise data-center land developers. - The company was built on insights from more than 140 customer interviews. - Gayathri is seeking introductions to land acquisition and development leaders at mid-to-large data-center developers, plus distribution and partnership opportunities to expand into multifamily development. - TiE Women said the evening was designed to let founders speak candidly about what they are building, what they have learned, and where they need help. - The organization thanked the founders, judges, mentors, members, and community supporters who attended.

Between the lines: - The format favored founder credibility and problem-solving over polished slide decks. - The winners share a pattern: each is targeting an operational bottleneck where speed, expertise, or earlier intervention could change outcomes. - TiE Women is using community events as a pipeline for relationships, not just recognition.

What's next: - Rashmi Raghavendra is seeking investor introductions as Dionysus Healthcare continues its seed round. - Neha is looking for corporate and investor connections to support Skeptics.ai’s next stage. - Gayathri is pursuing customers and partners to expand GeoProspex.ai beyond data-center development. - TiE Women said it will continue creating platforms that help women entrepreneurs connect ambition with resources and relationships.

The bottom line: - TiE Women’s Open Mic Night showed that founder storytelling can surface investable ideas, early traction, and concrete customer demand without a standard pitch deck.