Founders bet on technology that brings people together offline

TechCrunch, in a report by Connie Loizos, profiles founders building businesses around in-person connection. Brynn Putnam sold her connected-fitness company Mirror to Lululemon for $500 million in cash less than three years after founding it. Tristan Walker sold Walker & Company Brands to Procter & Gamble five years later for undisclosed terms, reportedly between $20 million and $40 million.

Putnam’s new company, Board, makes a 24-inch touchscreen table that recognizes physical game pieces and gestures. It is designed for groups playing together, including people of different ages and abilities. Walker’s Heirloom is acquiring and expanding fine-craft trade schools, beginning with a leatherworking school in San Francisco.

Other founders pursuing similar ideas include Bonobos founder Andy Dunn, whose Pie has evolved into a social-life platform anchored by “Community Homes,” and Audrey Gelman, whose Six Bells Countryside Inn is an 11-room guesthouse in the Hudson Valley that hosts a monthly murder-mystery dinner.

The founders see their work as a response to social disconnection and changes brought by technology and artificial intelligence. The World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Connection estimated that one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness and linked it to roughly 870,000 deaths a year. A Harris Poll sponsored by Marriott Bonvoy found that two-thirds of Americans were prioritizing experiences over material purchases that year.