Dakotah Rice

Dakotah Rice is the Founder and CEO of Harper, an AI-native commercial insurance brokerage based in New York, New York. Founded in 2024 and selected for the Y Combinator Winter 2025 batch, the startup currently serves thousands of commercial businesses across dozens of states by automating judgment-heavy underwriting workflows. Prior to launching Harper, Rice founded the alternative investment platform Poolit and held institutional investment and finance roles at major firms including The Carlyle Group and Goldman Sachs. He earned his undergraduate degree from Brown University in 2012 and subsequently attended Harvard Business School before dropping out in 2021 to pursue technology entrepreneurship full-time. Drawing on his family history in the insurance industry and an extensive private equity background, his current focus centers on leveraging artificial intelligence to modernize the commercial insurtech sector and automate risk matching.