Catherine Jue is the co-founder and CEO of Kernel, an AI infrastructure company building the browser layer that allows AI agents to interact with the internet. Founded in 2025 and part of Y Combinator’s S25 cohort, Kernel has raised $22 million in Seed and Series A funding led by Accel. A repeat founder and technologist, Catherine previously co-founded Sway Finance (YC S16) and went on to lead engineering teams at Cash App, including its forward-deployed engineering team and developer documentation platform. She studied linguistics and computer science at UCLA and brings a career-long focus on building technology at the intersection of infrastructure, automation, and emerging platforms.
Kernel cofounder Catherine Jue and Accel’s Daniel Levine join Cintrifuse Capital’s Max Dworin for a candid look at the founder and investor journey. Through Kernel’s experience building simultaneously in Cincinnati and San Francisco, they’ll explore raising institutional capital, navigating founder-investor relationships, and what it means to build an ambitious startup across two very different innovation ecosystems.
