Tolga Tezel is a founder and CEO based in Oakland with 14 years of engineering experience building product- and platform-level software across startups and large technology companies. He transitioned from hands-on roles at Dropbox and Nova Credit into insurtech entrepreneurship, founding Canopy Connect after a period of market validation. His background spans backend and API architecture (Node.js, MongoDB), embedded and hardware work early in his career, and analytic web tools—bringing a pragmatic full-stack perspective to product strategy. Tolga combines startup agility with engineering rigor honed at avionics and space-focused organizations, where testing and reliability were paramount. Colleagues would describe him as a builder who pivots between shipping production systems and exploring new market opportunities. His trajectory suggests a founder who deeply understands both the technical trade-offs of scalable systems and the customer validation required to turn them into sustainable products.
14 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) Electrical Engineering Honours Co-op Program, Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) Electrical Engineering Honours Co-op Program at University of Waterloo
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