Carnegie Mellon University

Elijah Mayfield

Elijah Mayfield

Entrepreneur-in-Residence; Former CEO, Lightside Labs

Industry/Field

EdTech, Sales, Starting While a Student

Bio

I did most of a Ph.D. at the Language Technologies Institute at CMU before leaving to build a startup, LightSide Labs, using machine learning in the US K-12 market. We brought in enough grants and revenue to grow to 10 employees without taking VC funding in about a year and a half. We then sold the company to Turnitin, a SaaS business that sells to universities and high schools, with about 40 million users globally. I built an office of 35 employees, led all departments in bringing new products to market in the US, and worked on the executive leadership team for a private equity-owned, growth-stage company with over 400 employees.