Yoodli’s co-founders, Varun Puri and Esha Joshi, Named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2026 Mountain West Finalists

We have some exciting news to share: Yoodli Co-Founders Varun Puri and Esha Joshi have been named finalists for the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2026 Mountain West Award.

This recognition means a lot to us — not just as a milestone for Yoodli, but as a reflection of what our team, our customers, and our vision have built together.

About the Award

Now in its 41st year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year program is one of the most prestigious recognitions for business leaders in the world. It celebrates bold founders who disrupt markets, drive economic growth, and build companies with lasting impact. An independent panel of judges selected Varun and Esha among 40 finalists across the Mountain West region, based on entrepreneurial spirit, purpose, company growth, and long-term value creation.

What This Moment Means

For Varun, this recognition is a testament to a simple but powerful idea: people deserve to be truly ready for the conversations that matter most.

“The best sales leaders, enablement teams, and L&D professionals we work with all want the same thing: to know their people are truly ready, not just that they completed a course. Experiential learning is how you get there — real practice, real feedback, real readiness. We’re proud to be building this category alongside some of the world’s most forward-thinking organizations.” 

— Varun Puri, Co-Founder & CEO

For Esha, the excitement is in what becomes possible when practice finally scales.

“Enablement leaders can build programs that actually change behavior. Sales managers get time back to focus on coaching that only humans can do. Reps show up to the conversations that count feeling genuinely prepared. That’s the shift from training as a checkbox to learning as a competitive advantage.” 

— Esha Joshi, Co-Founder & President

Building a New Category: AI Experiential Learning

When Varun and Esha started Yoodli, they set out to solve a problem every organization knows but few have cracked: the gap between knowing something and being able to do it under pressure.

Traditional learning management systems track completion. Yoodli closes the gap between learning and performance. Teams practice real, high-stakes conversations — sales calls, objection handling, manager coaching, customer meetings — through lifelike AI roleplays, get immediate feedback, and repeat until performance actually improves. The result is readiness leaders can measure, not just completion rates they can report.

That vision is resonating. Today, Yoodli is trusted by organizations like Google, ServiceNow, and Snowflake, has nearly one million users on the platform, and has raised more than $60 million from WestBridge Capital, Madrona Venture Group, and Neotribe Ventures.

Thank You

None of this happens without the people who believed in this mission early, our team, our customers, and our investors. Every rep who practiced before a big call, every enablement leader who bet on a better way, every engineer and designer who helped build Yoodli into what it is today — this recognition belongs to all of you.

We’re just getting started.

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Regional winners will be announced in June. To learn more about EY Entrepreneur Of The Year, visit ey.com/us/eoy. To learn more about Yoodli, visit yoodli.ai.