AlgoArena - Where LeetCode Meets Chess.com (Pre-Seed)

[Eli Young]

Hi Register,

I'm reaching out because of your work at Kernel and your interest in venture-backed EdTech companies.

I'm Eli, co-founder of AlgoArena (algoarena.net). My co-founder Andy Luu and I are both students at Swarthmore College. It started at dinner after a basketball game -- I showed Andy a list of ideas I keep on my phone, and he pointed at 'LeetCode 1v1' and said 'Hey, that seems like it would be fun to make!' We spent the next two months heads down, curating 5,000+ problems and building real-time matchmaking, ELO rankings, and the platform from scratch.

AlgoArena is a competitive programming platform -- essentially LeetCode and Chess.com's baby. Players compete in real-time 1v1 coding battles with ELO rankings and matchmaking, turning the most monotonous part of CS into something people actually want to do.

What we've built:

1v1 Competitive Coding -- Real-time battles against other humans with 5,000+ problems, ELO rankings, and matchmaking. 1,000+ matches completed, 500+ users.

Classroom Mode (algoarena.net/classroom) -- Kahoot but built for CS. Professors configure sessions from our question bank: multiple choice, true/false, interactive puzzles, and full coding problems. It breaks the ice and makes algorithm courses engaging instead of painful.

OA Mode (algoarena.net/oa) -- A recruiting tool that actually tests how people work today. Recruiters can toggle between testing manual coding and AI-assisted development. Unlike HackerRank or Codify, we provide a real development environment -- not a dumbed-down chatbot -- so we capture prompt engineering ability, multitasking, attention to detail, and interaction patterns. The current disconnect between how developers actually work and how they're tested is massive, and it's only getting worse with AI.

Why now:
LeetCode ($300M+ ARR) proved demand for coding practice but never innovated on engagement. Kahoot proved gamified learning works but never touched CS. HackerRank tests candidates the old way while real development has fundamentally changed with AI. We sit at the intersection of all three.

We're raising a pre-seed round. Would you be open to a 15-minute call?

Best,
Eli Young
Co-founder, AlgoArena
Swarthmore College '26
algoarena.net | eyoung4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx