As the founder and former CEO of Lex, I built a queer community app that revolutionized LGBTQ+ connections, growing to 1M+ downloads and 1M monthly messages. After securing $7.2M in funding and being named Apple’s App Store Top App for Pride, Lex was acquired in 2024.
Beyond tech, I’ve built a creative career that spans co-founding a textile studio, collaborating with '90s fashion icon Todd Oldham, and interviewing my hero, J.E.B. for Vogue. In 2014, my (now-defunct) Instagram account helped popularize the phrase The Future is Female, thrusting it into the cultural lexicon.
Hi I’m Kel 👋🏻
I’m a mid-40s xennial who spent over 20 years living and working in NYC. An art school dropout turned late-blooming founder, I came out as gay at 34 and started my first company at 38. That company became Lex, a VC-backed social app I built from the ground up and scaled to success. Now acquired, Lex taught me how to grow something meaningful from nothing.
These days, I split my time between Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley with my dog Mishka and my partner—a finance bro (she/her) who keeps me grounded when my dreaming gets wild. I’m into bird feeders, winters in the country, and just took up downhill skiing again after 30 years.