Taylor Halliday

Co-founder and CEO of Ravenna. Seattle, WA-based engineering leader and entrepreneur. Author of Ravenna’s $15M funding announcement post and the public face of the company’s product/positioning narrative.

Career

PeriodRoleCompany
2024 – presentCo-founder & CEORavenna
Nov 2023 – Jul 2024Director of Engineering, AIZapier
Nov 2021 – Apr 2024Director, ProductZapier
Dec 2019 – Feb 2022Principal EngineerZapier
2016 – 2020Co-founderMesh Studio (Seattle software consultancy; YC Fellowship 2016)
2013Co-founderCleargait (iPad gait analysis app)
2013Co-founderGather (location/time photo sharing)
(earlier)Co-founderFlixr (creative agency)

Y Combinator Fellowship

YC Fellowship 2016 cohort with Kevin Coleman for Mesh Studio. The YC Fellowship was a separate program from the full YC batch (defunct as a standalone format). ^[ambiguous — sometimes shorthanded as “YC 2016” in press; the Mesh on YC’s company directory listed today is a different unrelated company]

Ravenna Origin Story

Per Halliday’s blog post and the Madrona podcast:

  • Spent 4+ years at Zapier; saw automation demand emerge from business operations and IT teams.
  • Conducted 20–30+ customer discovery calls before writing code with Coleman.
  • Co-conviction: existing ITSM incumbents are “not making the best use of modern AI technology” and don’t integrate where work happens (Slack).
  • Founded Ravenna ~Aug/Sep 2024 (per Madrona podcast: “eight months old” at May 2025 recording).

Quotes

  • “Internal Support is long overdue for an upgrade. One that’s fast, human-centric, and powered by AI.” (Apr 2025 LinkedIn)
  • “Keep the work in chat, not in a portal. Ravenna lives entirely inside Slack/Teams.” (Sep 2025 LinkedIn)
  • YC taught us focus, humility, and defining your customer.” (Inspired Insider interview)

Public Profile

Pre-existing relationships visible on Ravenna’s cap table

  • Wade Foster (Zapier CEO) — Halliday’s prior CEO; angel
  • Mike Knoop (Zapier Co-founder, Head of AI) — angel
  • Bryan Helmig (Zapier CTO/Co-founder) — angel
  • Andrew Berman (Zapier Director of AI) — angel/advisor — likely Halliday’s direct successor or peer at Zapier ^[inferred]

This is a 4-Zapier-exec angel concentration — the densest founder-mafia pattern in the cap-table dataset.