Female Founder Series: HR Tech Founders Danika Khong & Elizabeth Wu on Fixing Hiring Gaps with Seismic

Danika Khong and Elizabeth Wu are the co-founders of Seismic, an HR tech platform transforming skills-based hiring for STEM professionals. Frustrated by the disconnect between academia and industry, they built a solution to empower job seekers to find better career paths and companies to have a better talent pipeline. With backgrounds in research and biotech, they turned their real world experiences in the problem space into a scalable business, securing over $1M in funding through investments and an NIH grant.Beyond building an innovative hiring platform, Danika and Elizabeth have also mastered the art of co-founder partnerships—leveraging complementary strengths, maintaining open communication, and figuring out how to navigate even the most challenging days together. In this episode, they share insights on taking risks, securing funding, and what it takes to grow a mission-driven HR tech startup while sustaining a strong co-founder (and work-life) dynamic.