Mel Sezto is an entrepreneur and venture partner recognized for building companies from the ground up. As the founder of KIUU, Mel bridges early-stage founders with the capital, strategic partners and the elite talent they need to succeed, while advising startups on building and scaling high-performing teams. At Playground Global, Mel established the firm’s talent arm from scratch, empowering deep-tech founders to recruit mission-critical talent for global growth. Mel’s impact spans launching category-defining companies at Greylock Partners, shaping foundational teams at Udacity and building pioneering engineering organizations at Google[x], where she contributed to early projects like its self-driving car (now Waymo). With a unique blend of technical depth and founder empathy, Mel enables startups to hire, scale and achieve transformative success.