About me 👇🏽

Computer Science Engineer

After graduating HS in the top of my class, I accepted an offer letter to The Ohio State University, where I’d earned an academic full-ride scholarship, planning to major in computer science but also play varsity sports.

Engineer turned Student-Athlete

While working, I self-trained non-stop for 3 months, working out twice daily at 6 am, before work, and 6 pm, after work. And as a result, I earned a walk-on position on the Buckeyes football team. I was 1 of 8 out of 60 people to try out that season.

Division I collegiate football was a full-time job on its own. Having to balance a tough academic schedule & rigorous practice schedule, all the while working to pay for housing and my next meal (scholarship only covered tuition) meant I was just getting by in my classes.

During my two-and-a-half year colligate football career, I suffered 2 major injuries, 1 of which was limb-threatening (compartment syndrome). It was after the 2nd major injury that I ultimately had to medically retire from the sport and focus on my Bachelor degree.

Student-Athlete turned Entrepreneur

Moving on from football left me with plenty of time on my hands and so I sought to fill it by founding & leading student orgs, finding my passion for and participating in numerous hack-a-thons, and ultimately starting 2 companies.

FUNDSTARTER LLC, my first social-entrepreneurial venture, was birth out of a Startup Weekend event, which I later went on to become an organizer of. The concept of crowdfunding was just hitting its peak; spearheaded by companies like Kickstarter. We were the “Kickstarter for non-profits”.

Using the crowdfunding model, with a twist (raffle auctioning), donors could give to causes they cared about and potentially win once-in-a-lifetime experiences (an early competitor in the space was omaze.com). Fundstarter was successful for a year but then the realities of a startup ran solely by college students who weren’t dropping out of college resulted in the slow but sure death of the business.

From that failure, I gained a lot of knowledge, which I brought along to my 2nd venture. In 2014-15, as a result of an independent study for my entrepreneurship minor, 4 close developer friends (including my former manager) and I founded AppKitchen to build mobile applications for small & medium businesses on a budget.

Entrepreneur turned Leader

As mentioned I also became a student org leader on campus, taking the helm of and turning around/rebranding a dying org. As President of CoStart OSU and then Founders Builders Creators Alliance (FBCA) I brought hands-on entrepreneurial experiences to students at Ohio State.

My goal, as President, was to move beyond theory and get to the practical aspects of running a business. As such, we brought in local business owners and entrepreneurs for talks as well as held hands-on workshops for students to collaborate on their hustles.

Leader turned Learner

In the summer of ’15, I landed an internship at Microsoft that lead to a full-time position at the company. I chose Microsoft specifically because I wanted to learn best practices for developing enterprise software.

I went on to work as a Software Development Engineer (SDE II) inside several teams at Microsoft, including the Commercial Software Engineering, Emerging Devices (Office) Teams, and Office for Web, where I largely focused my time on Web, Mobile, Voice, DevOps, Cloud, ML/AI, Bots, and Blockchain.

Learner turned Community Creator

Soon after joining Microsoft, I realized the disparities between intern-life versus full-time (FTE) life. Coming in as a Seattle transplant, there was very little in the way of networking or social events for young new hires at the massive company. So I decided to do something about it.

What started as small weekly social happy hour events advertised on Facebook has now grown into a large FB Group of over 6000+ current and former Microsoft FTEs actively sharing roommate requests, advice, resources, and recommendations on Microsoft or Seattle-related things. I’d like to think I’ve helped thaw the Seattle Freeze for many young Microsoft new hires and employees.

Young Microsoft FTEs

Creator turned Founder

I left an amazing job at Microsoft to plunge back into startups.

I became the CTO at Neu Inc (dubbed the Uber for Airbnb cleaning), a startup building a marketplace that provides automated hotel-grade turnovers for Airbnb/vacation rentals. I focus on the technology at Neu; tackling the challenges of security and scalability alongside some amazing co-founders.

Founder turned VC Investor

Neu was a personally successful venture. We, ironically, graduated the TechStars Seattle 2020 cohort into the COVID-19 pandemic. Expanded our service area from Seattle only to include much of the Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe area. And managed to gross > 900k while in operation.

Because of my experience as a founder, I became interested in being on the other side of the table as an investor. So I helped launch the inaugural Startup Haven Venture Fund as investment director, became a Limited Partner (LP) in a number of VC Funds (Ascend, FirstRound, Dreamward, etc) and made a number of Angel investments.

VC Investor turned RE Investor

After a decade as a founder/investor, I realized my passion for investing went beyond startups.

It started with a humble 4-unit in 2024. A couple SingleFamily (SF) rentals in 2025. Then a commercial 16-unit in 2026.

I continue to be fascinated with the business of Real Estate and the people even more so. I find that my digital skills compliment the physical skills of operating Real Estate.

And I also continue to build software and write code (now made easier with AI).

Feedback & Reviews

Here’s what others say about me….

❞

"Claudius Mbemba is a driven individual in everything that he does. In his role working for me, I leveraged his great programming skills across a number of different scenarios but he also demonstrated great aptitude working directly with customers helping them understand their own innovation path. "

Josh Holmes

Principal PM Lead for Web Apps and Frameworks at Microsoft

❞

"Claudius was presented with the almost insurmountable task of reviving a dying student organization… Claudius saw a need, stepped up, and fulfilled it. He’s done wonderful things with the CoStart organization since, including establishing a leadership board… "

Krystal Geyer

Assistant Director of the Entrepreneurship Center at Ball State University

❞

"Claudius displayed his high degree of intelligence, analytical and technical skills. He took the time to resolve complex issues and offered direction to other student staff. I know Claudius will be successful because he has mastered a hard-working attitude with his enormous abilities to make it happen."

David Brown

Systems Engineer/Developer at The Ohio State University

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