Seattle-area billboard takes a page from Bay Area playbook: ‘Startup energy should be more visible’

A Bellevue, Wash.-based startup that came out of stealth last fall is really trying to get noticed now, taking a page out of a playbook that’s more prevalent in Silicon Valley.

Summation is an AI platform that helps enterprise leaders draw insights from large volumes of internal data. A bright orange billboard visible from SR 520 doesn’t say that, but it does put the company’s name in sight of drivers — many of whom potentially work in tech — heading east along the highway.

“We’re building Summation here in Bellevue, and wanted to do something a little bold and a little playful — for recruiting, for awareness, and because startup energy should be more visible around here,” CEO Ian Wong told GeekWire.

Wong is the former CTO of real estate giant Opendoor and Square’s first data scientist. He co-founded Summation in 2024 with Ramachandran “RC” Ramarathinam, who led Opendoor’s core transaction platform.

Summation raised $35 million in funding from Benchmark and Kleiner Perkins in October.

Tech company billboards are a big part of the landscape in the San Francisco Bay Area. Signs advertise a whole new era of AI-focused startup names and products. Last summer, The New York Times published a fun quiz challenging readers to decode what some of the billboards were even selling around Silicon Valley.

Wong said capturing a slice of that energy was part of the point with his company’s billboard in Bellevue, which went up about two weeks ago near the Burgermaster restaurant along Northup Way.

“In SF, startup ambition is just visible — on 101, on the sides of buildings, in every coffee shop,” he said. “The Seattle/Bellevue area has world-class technical talent, but the scene here has always been understated. We wanted to put up a small signal that ambitious things are being built on this side of the lake, too — and if you want to work on one of them, come find us.”

Bellevue-based startup Stasig used a reverse tactic back in 2024 when it launched an aggressive campaign to spread its name across the Bay Area with more than 200 billboards and posters at transit shelters and stations.

Summation employs about 35 people right now and is hiring across engineering, product, and go-to-market.

Summation’s platform sits on top of data systems and runs massive calculations automatically, testing different scenarios and using AI agents to explore different questions in parallel. The software also automates financial reconciliations, variance analysis, and management reporting.

The advertising lines up with what Wong called “a big product release” coming next week.

“Always be hiring,” he said. “And selling.”