Silicon Oasis Pitch Night Showcases Five Arizona Startups Building Across AI, Infrastructure and Enterprise Technology

TEMPE, Ariz. — August 6, 2026 — Silicon Oasis brought Arizona’s technology community together Thursday evening for its latest Silicon Oasis Pitch Night, hosted in partnership with PHX FWD and PHX Angels in downtown Tempe.

The evening featured five companies — Velociti, BlockSkunk, OCX Cognition, Power-Fabric and Vouched — presenting technologies spanning artificial intelligence, product development, regulated infrastructure, data-center power and hiring.

The lineup highlighted the increasing breadth of technology being built by founders connected to Arizona, from early-stage startups launching new products to experienced technology executives pursuing large enterprise markets.

Velociti: Building the AI Product Operating System

Velociti, led by Founder and CEO Anthony Argenziano and Co-Founder and CTO Alexiz Hernandez, is building what the company calls an AI Product Operating System.

While AI coding platforms have dramatically accelerated how quickly software can be built, Velociti is focused on the question that comes before the code: What should teams actually build?

Its Context Suite connects customer discovery, product intelligence, strategy and development into a continuous system that can ultimately send build-ready initiatives directly into AI coding environments such as Cursor and Claude.

The company has already generated significant early traction, reporting more than 2,000 trial signups, 100 paying customers, 95% customer retention and 10x pipeline growth in Q2 to $500,000 ARR.

The founders bring substantial product and engineering experience. Argenziano has spent 25 years building products, teams and companies, including experience at Amazon, eBay, Intel and more than 10 startups. Hernandez brings more than 12 years of software architecture and development experience, including work at Amazon and Charles Schwab.

BlockSkunk: Creating Verifiable Infrastructure for Regulated Industries

BlockSkunk, founded and led by CEO Michael Santore, is tackling the fragmented records and compliance systems that exist between organizations operating in regulated industries.

Its platform is designed to create a neutral, cryptographically verifiable record across multiple parties rather than requiring every organization to maintain and reconcile its own version of events.

BlockSkunk is developing two primary products: Stratum, a shared record across participating organizations and their existing systems, and Arbiter, a compliance layer designed to turn risks, controls and evidence into verifiable proof.

The company says it currently has two active customer pilots, including an SEC-registered wealth advisory firm and a data-rights consortium exploring shared records for AI training rights and usage.

Santore previously architected $2.5 billion in treasury infrastructure at Clearco and has a prior startup exit. BlockSkunk’s broader team brings experience across cybersecurity, government, enterprise software and compliance, including backgrounds at EY and Deloitte.

OCX Cognition: The Team Behind Net Promoter Score Takes on Customer AI

Scottsdale-based OCX Cognition brought one of the evening’s most experienced founding teams.

Co-Founder and CEO Richard Owen and Co-Founder and Head of Product Brian Curry previously helped lead the team that co-created Net Promoter Score at Satmetrix. They are now building what OCX describes as a Customer AI system of intelligence.

OCX is designed to help large B2B enterprises understand the actual condition of their customer relationships without depending primarily on surveys, anecdotes or traditional customer-health scores.

The platform combines outside-in and inside-out customer information to establish what is happening with an account, why it is happening, what the customer is likely to do next and what action could change the outcome.

The technology is already operating at significant enterprise scale. OCX says its platform has been in production on the B2B side of American Express since December 2025 and that the customer is reference-available.

Owen previously served as CEO of Satmetrix, which was acquired by NICE Systems, and CEO of AvantGo, which completed an IPO. Curry previously served as CPO/COO of Satmetrix and CPO of YouSendIt and held leadership roles at Netscape, AOL and Yahoo.

Power-Fabric: Solving the AI Data Center Power Problem

As artificial intelligence drives unprecedented demand for computing infrastructure, Power-Fabric is focused on one of the industry's largest physical constraints: electricity.

Founded by Abhishek Jaiswal, PhD, Power-Fabric is developing technology designed to make grid interconnection more reliable and financially viable for both AI data centers and electric utilities.

The platform sits between the utility and data center, enabling two-way communication and providing capabilities around real-time visibility, planning and optimization, dispatchability, monitoring, control, settlement and reporting.

The underlying challenge is increasingly important because AI data centers behave differently from traditional electrical loads. Power-Fabric's deck notes that large AI computing environments can create rapid fluctuations in electricity demand while data-center developers face enormous financial pressure to bring new capacity online quickly.

Power-Fabric's approach is designed to allow utilities and data centers to coordinate proactively while giving operators greater flexibility over behind-the-meter assets and helping utilities manage large loads as part of the broader grid.

Jaiswal is supported by a team spanning utility program management, control-center operations and software, along with an advisor group that includes former Arizona Public Service CEO Jeff Guldner, DataVolt global sales leader Raj Rajagopal, BrightNight EVP Erik Ellis, Energy Vault CTO Craig Horne and ASU professor Nathan Johnson.

Vouched: Rebuilding Hiring Around Verification and Transparency

Vouched, co-founded by Rebecca Moltz-Sandhu and technical co-founder Lucky Sandhu, is taking on a problem familiar to both employers and job seekers: a hiring market increasingly overwhelmed by application volume.

The company argues that AI-generated applications have increased volume while making it harder for employers to determine which candidates are legitimate and qualified.

Vouched's answer is a verified direct-hire platform connecting pre-verified candidates directly with employers. Candidates can receive peer endorsements, employers operate within defined hiring windows, and applicants can see their status throughout the process.

The startup has moved particularly quickly. The idea originated on May 11, 2026, and the platform went live on June 21 — just 41 days later. By July, Vouched reported that its payment infrastructure, candidate and employer verification, Blind Merit Review, learning library and application-status system were operational.

Moltz-Sandhu leads brand, positioning and go-to-market strategy, while Sandhu handles the technical side of the business. An AI automation specialist and full-stack developer, Sandhu built the initial platform using technologies including Netlify, Supabase and Stripe.

A Cross-Section of Arizona's Emerging Technology Economy

The five presentations reflected a technology ecosystem extending well beyond any single sector.

Velociti is addressing how software gets conceived and built. OCX Cognition is applying AI to enterprise customer intelligence. BlockSkunk is developing infrastructure for regulated multi-party environments. Power-Fabric is tackling the physical infrastructure required to support the AI boom. Vouched is rethinking how companies and candidates navigate hiring in an AI-driven labor market.

Just as importantly, the founders represented a mix of experienced technology executives and emerging entrepreneurs — with backgrounds spanning Amazon, Intel, American Express-scale enterprise deployments, Satmetrix, Clearco, utilities, cybersecurity and AI automation.

That combination of experienced operators, new founders, investors and community leaders is at the center of what Silicon Oasis Pitch Night is designed to facilitate: putting Arizona companies in the room with the people who can help them take the next step.

Silicon Oasis will continue hosting Pitch Nights as part of its broader mission to connect Arizona's founders, investors and technology leaders and strengthen the state's position as a leading U.S. technology ecosystem.