Eric Mills

YC W17 founder and software engineer in Chicago

Good technology gets out of the way.

Eric Mills

I’m a YC W17 founder and currently co-founder and CTO of Permute, the agentic data team.

I also run BlackInk AI, a consumer AI tattoo app, and I’m building Density Collective, a coworking space for founders in Chicago.

I studied computer science at the University of Illinois and started Founders @ UIUC. I invest alongside Orange Collective and enjoy helping early-stage startups (including occasional small investments). Outside work I’m into golf, woodworking, and dancing.

Eric Mills system map A diagram grouping Eric Mills’s companies, independent projects, and startup communities. ERIC MILLS FOUNDER / ENGINEER WORK PERMUTE AGENTIC DATA TEAM CYBERGRAPH ACQUIRED CIVIS DATA COMMUNITY DENSITY COLLECTIVE FOUNDER SPACE ORANGE COLLECTIVE INVESTING YC / W17 FOUNDER UIUC / FOUNDERS COMMUNITY PROJECTS BLACKINK AI ACTIVE CODEWORD OCCASIONAL
Permute Work The agentic data team. BlackInk AI Project Active side project. Bootstrapped generative AI for tattoo design, which grew to 350k monthly active users. Density Collective Community A founder-led workspace built around deep work, useful peers, and Chicago’s startup community.
Orange Collective I invest alongside Orange Collective. Community Codeword An occasional small security project for verifying sensitive conversations. Project CyberGraph Led engineering for machine learning and graph-based email security. Acquired by Mimecast. Work Lithit IoT smart targets for shooting ranges. Work CalendarBridge Syncing tools for calendars. Project
Houdini Syncing tools for music playlists. Project
Motion tracking Motion tracking for wearable devices. Work
Founders @ UIUC Entrepreneurship organization at the University of Illinois. Community Civis Analytics First job. Built data science infrastructure and analytics software for public good. Work

Areas

  • Software architecture
  • AI and ML production systems
  • Data infrastructure
  • Security
  • Product and interface design