Sometimes, the only ones who can rebuild a system are the people whom the system has failed the most. This is the story behind three founders who set out to do just that.
The founders of Imera, Pelican Invest, and Myri Health didn’t just identify market gaps; they lived them. From navigating immigration limbo to recovering from childbirth or breaking through financial confusion, each founder built the platform they once needed themselves. Their startups now offer intelligent, personalized tools that support the whole person, not just a process.
They’re not alone in this approach. After 15 years of supporting nearly 1,800 entrepreneurs across 70+ countries, we’ve seen that some of the most remarkable solutions often come from founders who are closely connected to the problems they’re trying to solve, through lived experience or strong community ties. It often gives them a more nuanced understanding of local challenges and leads to insights that are too often overlooked.
Locally-led startups are also more flexible, willing to take risks, and adapt to shape the future. Because they often have a personal stake in the challenge or a close connection to the communities they serve, which makes them more likely to grow sustainably. That’s why this segment has been at the core of Village Capital’s mission for the past decade.
In this piece, we explore how Imera, Pelican, and Myri Health are using lived experience to reshape three systems – immigration, financial access, and maternal healthcare. Here's what they have in common:
Before launching their platforms, these founders lived the struggle – navigating confusing paperwork, financial instability, or postpartum pain without a map. Their startups don’t just offer solutions. They offer solidarity.
Victoria Ter-Ovanesyan, Co-Founder and COO of Imera, one of the peer-selected grant awardees of the inaugural Women in Tech Accelerator program by Village Capital and Standard Chartered, knows firsthand that “immigration is every part of your life. It is not just your visa.” For many immigrants, the journey isn’t just about paperwork – it’s about reshaping their identity, navigating loneliness, and finding a sense of belonging in a system that wasn’t built for them.
Even after eight years in the US, Victoria still felt stuck in what she calls “limbo.” There was no clear path to permanent residency and no certainty about her future despite having built a life in the country. “You’re consistently meant to be in this limbo… even though objectively you’ve built your life here,” she shares.
Imera is her answer to that disconnect. It’s more than a checklist. Imera combines tech and empathy to guide immigrants through both the legal process and the emotional journey. “It’s almost like you had an older sibling who already went through the process before you… Now, they’re telling you exactly what to do and exactly when to do it.”
Even moments like Christmas can be alienating, she notes: “Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the US are incredibly isolating if you’re not with your family.” Imera helps its users feel seen and supported, both logistically and emotionally. “You can’t talk about the challenges immigrants face without talking about the challenges that motivated them to move.”
This bigger-picture approach links Imera to two more founder-led startups, Pelican Invest and Myri Health. Each founder sees people not as users but as individuals shaped by past struggles and future hopes. By blending intelligent technology with lived experience, these founders are closing the gaps traditional systems have left behind — offering not just services, but solidarity.
For Dr. Pinkey Patel, Founder and CEO of Myri Health, personal experience didn’t just spark her startup – it became its blueprint. Despite being a clinical pharmacist and pre/postnatal trainer, Pinkey wasn’t taken seriously during her own pregnancies. “I wasn’t confused – I was informed. But I still had to fight for answers, advocate for myself, and wonder if what I was experiencing was ‘normal.’ That’s a problem.”
This tension between medical knowledge and real-world care led her to build Myri, a tech-driven platform that offers structured, personalized, and equitable maternal support. “We provide more structured care pathways and recovery resources for knee replacements than we do for childbirth,” she says. “That’s not just a gap – it’s a global failure,” Pinky attests.
The platform uses AI to track emotional, physical, and behavioral data, under strict privacy rules. This can surface early signals of complications like postpartum depression or preeclampsia. But empathy is baked into the design. “The breakthrough? We made AI feel human,” Pinkey says. “It’s not just tracking, it’s translation.”
Lived experience doesn’t just shape the product; it shapes the team. “I’ve been the one bleeding through business meetings, pitching while breastfeeding, and launching new features while deep in postpartum recovery,” she reflects. “We lead with lived experience, but we scale with clinical, technical, and human rigor. That’s our edge.”
Where Myri Health reimagines maternal care by addressing the physical, emotional, and systemic gaps new mothers face, Pelican Invest turns its focus to another foundational challenge for families: financial security. Just as Pinkey Patel built Myri from the front lines of postpartum experience, Alexandra Bono created Pelican out of a deep frustration with how difficult it is for families to plan, save, and feel confident about the future. The stakes are different but the philosophy is the same: real change starts by meeting people where they are, with tools grounded in empathy and built for long-term impact.
“I was raised to believe that with hard work and a support net, anything was possible,” says Alexandra Bono, Founder of Pelican, which guides families to financial planning education. “But I also saw firsthand how financial barriers can limit even the most driven people.” That insight stuck and then deepened while she pursued her MBA. After speaking with more than 400 families, the message was consistent: “When it comes to the financial aspects of education expenses, it’s hard to get started. It’s confusing. It’s easy to get wrong.”
Then this founder heard the statistic that changed everything: Students with just USD 500 saved are four times more likely to enroll in college and three times more likely to graduate. “That hit me like a lightning bolt,” Alexandra says. “It’s not about the quantity of money, but having something in your pocket that feeds our self-belief, about possibility, about someone cheering you on.” The statistic has been widely reported since 2013, originating in a study by the University of Kansas.
Pelican was built to offer that early confidence. It gives families an easy place to start, matches them with educational resources, and breaks down financial planning into achievable steps. “People don’t need perfect knowledge. They need a clear place to start and to know they’re not alone.” Hence, the first end-to-end platform that helps families from saving to spending – for education was born–Pelican.
Alexandra’s urgency is rooted in the 2008 financial crisis. Her first job was at the US Treasury, where she witnessed families lose homes and hope. “What stayed with me wasn’t just the headlines. It was watching friends drop out of school because they couldn’t afford it.” Pelican is her answer to that moment. “This work is about more than savings. It’s about giving families the tools to dream, plan, and achieve.”
What makes these early-stage startups stand out isn’t just the tech or their innovation. It’s that each one is grounded in personal truth and a deep understanding of what their users really need. That connection builds trust, drives user-centered design, and fosters stronger communities.
And studies back this up: companies that deeply understand the lived realities of their users are more likely to retain customers and make a measurable impact. McKinsey found that organizations that invest in user experience grow revenues twice as fast as their industry peers. Moreover, at Village Capital, founder programs keep peer due diligence at their core and support founders with lived experience through interventions tailored to each key player in the system.
So, what do these founder-led startups prove? That lived experience isn’t a soft skill – it’s a strategic business advantage. It’s the foundation of care-driven, community-centered innovation. And it might be the future of how we build better systems.