Erim Gurlemis is Co-Founder of GUILD (YC S26), an AI-native defense contractor reshaping the defense supply chain by automating procurement and in-house manufacturing of aerospace parts.

Erim earned an MSc in Computer Science from Columbia University and dual BSc degrees in Computer Science and Statistics from Duke University, building a strong technical foundation across AI and quantitative disciplines.

With experience spanning AI engineering in commodity trading at Hartree Partners and machine learning at Morgan Stanley, Erim brings a rare blend of financial systems expertise and applied AI to the defense sector.

Prior to GUILD, Erim served as AI Tech Lead at Hartree Partners and as an ML Engineer at Morgan Stanley, where he developed deep expertise in predictive modeling and data-driven decision systems.

Selected for Y Combinator Summer 2026, GUILD is pioneering an AI-native business model that predicts government defense demand and fulfills contracts end-to-end, faster and more cost-effectively than traditional incumbents.