The married co-founders of cybersecurity startup Clearly AI have raised $8.4 million in seed funding less than two years after launching, with their company also named a finalist in a high-profile industry competition.
“There are so many benefits,” said Emily Choi-Greene, CEO of the Seattle-based company she runs with her husband Joe Choi-Greene. “There is full incentive alignment. We are fully on the same page about what we want in our lives.” The company was named one of 10 finalists in the RSAC 2026 Innovation Sandbox Contest, a major competition tied to the RSA Conference.
The round includes backing from Y Combinator, Basis Set Ventures, Crosspoint Capital, Argon Ventures, and Ritual Capital. Clearly AI’s software helps security, privacy, and compliance teams review new products, features, vendors, and AI deployments before they ship. Instead of relying on spreadsheets, tickets, and manual interviews with engineers, the platform automatically gathers context, assesses risk, and flags where human review is needed.
The startup says its software is already used by 17 enterprise customers, including Rivian, Ericsson, Okta, Webflow, Affirm, and HID Global. Rivian is using Clearly AI to evaluate privacy and AI risk every time a new vehicle feature is introduced. The co-founders originally met at Amazon. Emily worked on natural language understanding for Alexa and later on Amazon’s device security teams, while Joe focused on security and large language models, including work on Amazon’s Project Kuiper. After Emily left Amazon for AI startup Moveworks, which was acquired by ServiceNow in 2025, the couple joined Y Combinator together in 2024 and launched Clearly AI shortly after.
Emily said building the company with her spouse has been a strategic advantage, citing a communication foundation that predates the startup. She joked that Y Combinator’s internal guidance on co-founder relationships often sounds like couples therapy, but in their case that work was already done. “It’s been absolutely awesome working together,” she said. Clearly AI joins a small club of companies launched by couples who were married or went on to get married, including Eventbrite, Canva, and SlideShare.
Clearly AI has 12 employees and is based in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. The company’s rapid growth from launch to significant enterprise adoption reflects both the demand for automated security review tools and the founders’ combined expertise from their Amazon backgrounds in AI and security systems.
