YC Summer 2026 (S26) founder

Elena Zhao

Founder of Litmus, Run an async work trial on every engineer you interview.

Company

Elena Zhao is listed as a founder of Litmus. Litmus is the most accurate read on how an engineer actually builds. We evaluate candidates through async technical assessments built from your own tech context (repos, tickets, and job descriptions), generated from scratch and scoped as real end-to-end features. Candidates work in their own setup with all their tools including AI, while we track and evaluate their process and output. Every submission runs in a sandbox, and grading is tuned to your company across tool fluency, process, and outcome. You get a real read on how someone actually builds, not just how they interview.

Founder traction evidence

Public posts and activity attributed directly to this founder.

  1. LinkedIn

    Elena Zhao announced Litmus is headed to Y Combinator

    Founder post says Elena Zhao and Shaivi Rau are building Litmus and headed to Y Combinator this summer.

  2. X

    this is our engineering team btw

    this is our engineering team btw

  3. X

    feeding sf startups one pastry box at a time @composio

    feeding sf startups one pastry box at a time @composio

  4. X

    spot the difference: - my cofounder - mannequin on south park

    spot the difference: - my cofounder - mannequin on south park

  5. X

    about time 🙌

    about time 🙌

  6. X

    tech slop bowls upgraded ‼️

    tech slop bowls upgraded ‼️

  7. X

    i hear litmus peaches make your claude think faster

    i hear litmus peaches make your claude think faster

  8. X

    @ShaiviRau can we hire someone for this

    @ShaiviRau can we hire someone for this