Physics Majors are first Georgetown students to become YC Founders

Lucas Raskin (CAS 2025), Eli Kerstein (CAS 2024), and John Andrzejewski (CAS 2025)

Three students from Georgetown University’s College of Arts & Sciences have been accepted into Y Combinator’s Summer 2024 cohort, the startup accelerator’s most competitive batch to date. Lucas Raskin (CAS 2025), Eli Kerstein (CAS 2024), and John Andrzejewski (CAS 2025), all undergraduates in the Physics Department, are the first Georgetown students to become YC Founders. Y Combinator, which selects approximately 300 of the most promising young companies from around the world, has committed to providing $500,000 in funding and guidance to their startup, Guardian RF Corporation.

Guardian RF’s mission is to develop capabilities for the United States and its allies to detect, track, and disrupt unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The company was founded following a defense tech hackathon organized by Apollo Defense and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. Their handheld drone detection technology caught the attention of D3 Venture Capital, a Kyiv-based investment firm launched by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in 2023. Since then, the group has secured additional investment from Y Combinator and is now focused on product development. “We are making a tangible product that saves lives. Our early results and momentum have been hugely encouraging. This device needs to be in the hands of every single serviceman keeping our country safe.” For more information on the project, follow their LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/guardian-rf .