CANDY HOUSE, Inc. is the consumer-hardware company behind Sesame, the retrofit smart lock that mounts over an existing deadbolt with adhesive tape and turns a smartphone, fingerprint, card, PIN or face into a key. Founded in 2014 by Stanford engineer Jerming Gu and famous for a 2015 Kickstarter that raised about $1.4M, the company built an open ecosystem around SesameOS - locks, touch and face readers, a coin-sized Matter hub, sensors and finger robots - aimed at making smart-home access affordable, rental-friendly and developer-open.
EON is a New York-based enterprise software company building the Digital ID layer for physical products. Through its EON Product Cloud platform, brands give each item a unique, traceable digital identity - accessed via QR code, NFC chip or RFID tag - that follows the product across its full lifecycle, powering resale, repair, authentication, customer engagement and compliance with the EU's upcoming Digital Product Passport regulation. Founded in 2017 by Natasha Franck, EON authored the open CircularID Protocol and works with brands including Coach, Chloe, H&M, Mulberry and Target.
HiHello builds digital business cards, email signatures, virtual backgrounds, and contact management tools for individuals and enterprises. Founded in 2018 in Palo Alto by serial founder Manu Kumar (CardMunch, Carta) and Hari Ravi, the company turns the awkward exchange of paper rectangles into a tappable, shareable, trackable contact moment.
Wen Miao is the co-founder and CEO of Lava.ai, a San Francisco-based company building real-time AI-powered customer engagement and loyalty platforms for sports teams, entertainment venues, and enterprise brands. Before Lava.ai, he was SVP and GM at TIBCO Software, where he led global client services and launched real-time predictive customer engagement platforms. Lava.ai counts Real Madrid, the LA Rams, the Sacramento Kings, and the Cleveland Browns among its clients, and has raised over $33.7M in funding. In 2015, Computerworld named Miao a Premier 100 IT Leader.