Bartek Kunowski

Who they are

Bartek Kunowski is Co-founder and CEO of ara, an AI-enhanced asynchronous video meetings platform — previously CPO at Glovo during its high-growth scaling years, and before that co-founded Joey, a safe messaging platform for adolescents.

Person

Bartek studied Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, graduating in 2003 — a technical foundation he's carried through every subsequent move. He came up through product and engineering roles at Amazon and Tuenti before landing at Glovo as CPO, where he was present during the company's early-day scaling and spoke publicly about that period in a podcast interview titled 'Glovo's Early Days & Reinventing Meetings with Ara.' Alongside his operator track, he's founded three things: Baroo Software, a software company he co-founded and directed; Joey, a safe messaging and online interaction platform built for adolescents; and ara, his current company, an AI-enhanced asynchronous video meetings platform for remote and hybrid teams. The through-line is technical founders who move toward the product layer and eventually bet on their own conviction — in Bartek's case, that async video can replace traditional video conferences. He writes actively on Medium at kunowski.medium.com, covering product leadership, AI, Glovo's scaling story, and the case for asynchronous meetings. He spoke at Panathenea 2025 and Product Heroes 2025, and has done podcast interviews pitching ara to the product leadership community.

Company

Possibly — ara raised approximately $571K in a single angel round around 2024, and is headquartered in London. The company was founded in 2020 and is building an AI-enhanced asynchronous video meetings platform aimed at replacing traditional video conferences for remote and hybrid teams. Possibly — it has been hiring in the 2024–2025 period, suggesting early team-building momentum. Bartek has been actively promoting ara on the conference circuit — Panathenea 2025, Product Heroes 2025 — and in podcast interviews, which signals the company is in a go-to-market phase rather than pure stealth.

Market

Possibly — ara operates in the Application Release Automation and AI-driven productivity space, competing as an early-stage player against more established tools in the async video and remote-work collaboration market. The broader sector is shaped by digital transformation, AI-driven automation, and the ongoing shift to hybrid work — tailwinds for a product betting that synchronous video calls are due for replacement. Macroeconomic pressures including inflation and interest rate fluctuations affect early-stage investment dynamics in this space.

How they likely show up

Multiple founded companies (Baroo Software, Joey, ara) alongside operator roles at Amazon, Tuenti, and Glovo → high agency, unlikely to sit still inside someone else's roadmap for long.
Moved from a CPO seat at a scaled company (Glovo) to founding an early-stage startup → comfortable trading institutional leverage for ownership and conviction.
Active Medium writer and 2025 conference speaker on async meetings and product leadership → comfortable being publicly identified with a thesis, not just a company.
Mathematics and Computer Science degree from Waterloo → likely comfortable in technical depth conversations and probably forms views from first principles rather than consensus.
Possibly — mixed tenure shape across roles → may move fast when the problem is solved or the learning curve flattens, rather than staying for institutional reasons.

Conversation tips

→ Reference the Glovo podcast interview specifically — he's told that origin story publicly and it signals you've done more than a LinkedIn skim.
→ Ask about the async video thesis directly — he's staked his current company on it and speaks about it publicly, so he has a developed point of view he'll enjoy defending.
→ Don't treat ara as a side project — he left a CPO seat to build it; it's the main bet.
→ His Waterloo background means he'll engage on technical specifics — don't stay at the 'product vision' altitude the whole conversation.
→ He's active on Medium and at conferences, so if you've read something he wrote, say which piece — he'll know you read it, not just saw the byline.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the Panathenea 2025 appearance — he was billed there specifically as the founder of an AI-enhanced async video platform, and it's recent enough to be a live reference point.
Bring up the Spotify podcast 'Glovo's Early Days & Reinventing Meetings with Ara' — he went on record connecting his Glovo experience to the insight that triggered ara, which gives you a named thread to pull.
Reference Joey — his earlier co-founded company built safe messaging for adolescents — as a contrast to ara: two very different user protection and communication problems, worth asking what carries over.

Discovery questions

What specifically at Glovo convinced you that async video was the right problem to bet on — was there a moment where the synchronous meeting cost became undeniable at scale?
Joey was about safe communication for adolescents and ara is about async communication for teams — what, if anything, did building for a vulnerable user population teach you about designing for behaviour change?
You raised a small angel round and you're actively on the conference circuit — at what point does ara's go-to-market shift from founder-led storytelling to something more systematic?

Avoid

Don't pitch async collaboration as a general trend without a specific angle — he's the one who built a company on that thesis and will have sharper opinions on it than any generic framing you bring.

Make it yours