Alisa Rae

CEO @ Lucent (YC W26)

About

I've watched more session replays than anyone I know. I started my career as a Founding Engineer at MagicBrief (acq by Canva). At 21, I left to bootstrap and sell my first startup in EdTech. That's where I learned the team watching users most closely usually wins. After that, I joined Atlassian to build Jira. Across all three, watching replays was how I found the bugs users never reported and the friction they couldn't articulate. It's the highest-signal work in product, and also the most tedious. Lucent is automating my old job at scale. It watches every session replay and tells engineering + product teams what's breaking, what's confusing users, and how people actually use what they built. We've now watched millions of sessions for AI-native teams like Reducto, Browser Use, Mastra, and Julius.If you’d like to learn more, send me a message ☺️

Country

United States

City

San Francisco

Industry

Computer Software

Skill

Experience

CEO

Lucent (YC W26)

2025-8 - Present · 1 yr 2 mos

An AI that watches your session replays to find where users are struggling. Backed by Horizon, Browder Capital, Long Journey, Weekend Fund, Firestreak, Y Combinator and more.

Software Engineer

Atlassian

2024 - 2025 · 1 yr

Worked on the rich text editor used across Jira, Bitbucket, and Confluence.

Side Project

Stella AI

2024 - 2024

- An AI study app I made in college - Acquired by a local education company

Founding Engineer

MagicBrief

2023 - 2024 · 1 yr

- Employee #2 - Acquired by Canva

Education

University of Sydney

Majors: Mathematics, Computer Science. Dropped out.

Hornsby Girls High School

I moved out of home at 15 and at the end of year 11, I was ranked last in my cohort for 5 out of 6 subjects. I worked hard in my final year and received the highest band in every subject. HSC subjects: Mathematics Extension 1 & 2, Physics, Business Studies, English Advanced. - HSC All Rounder & Distinguished Achiever. - Class of 1960 Achievement Award. - Senior chess team captain. - Pianist for senior choir and house choir.

Abbotsleigh

- Selected to compete in the 2016 Australian Chess Championships. - Highest Individual Score in Australasian Problem Solving Mathematical Olympiads (APSMO). - 1st in cohort for Mathematics Accelerants. - Junior chess team captain. - AMEB piano 8th grade (pass with distinction, 2015).