US founders bet on offline interaction — TechCrunch
In the United States, business founders Brynn Putnam, Tristan Walker, Andy Dunn, and Audrey Gelman are developing projects designed around in-person human interaction. Their new businesses are united by an attempt to create offline experiences — from shared games at a touch table to learning crafts and themed dinners, TechCrunch reports.
Technology for shared leisure
Brynn Putnam, who previously founded connected fitness company Mirror and sold it to Lululemon for $500 million in cash, is now developing Board. The company is creating a 24-inch touch table that recognizes physical game pieces and gestures. The device is designed for group play: for example, a spaceship figurine placed on the table triggers an action in a game, while a knife makes a virtual cut.
Putnam explained that she wanted to create a product that people of different ages and skill levels could use together. According to her, the idea is not to reject digital technology, but to use technology for shared experiences. Over three years, Board has raised $35 million in venture funding.
Crafts and social communities
Tristan Walker, who sold men's grooming brand Walker & Company Brands to Procter & Gamble, founded Heirloom. The company acquires and scales schools of traditional crafts; its first institution was a leatherworking school in San Francisco founded by Hermès' first American master ambassador.
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Walker said he is concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence on intellectual work and human connections. In his view, the connection between masters and apprentices in fields such as leatherworking, watchmaking, and fragrance creation has weakened in the United States. More than half of the places at Heirloom's first location, he said, are taken by young technology industry workers seeking a creative activity without smartphones.
Bonobos founder Andy Dunn is developing Pie, a service that evolved from a friend-finding app into a platform for organizing social life. Its foundation is Community Homes — permanent digital spaces for regular groups, including running clubs or shared viewing sessions. Audrey Gelman, the former founder of women's club The Wing, runs the Six Bells Countryside Inn guesthouse in the Hudson Valley, where murder mystery dinners are held monthly.
Investments in overcoming loneliness
In June last year, the World Health Organization Commission on Social Connection named loneliness one of the key global public health problems. According to its estimate, loneliness affects one in six people worldwide and is associated with approximately 870,000 deaths annually.
The largest amount of funding among similar projects has been received by Flow, a residential development business of WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann. The company, promoted as a space for overcoming loneliness through the physical environment, has raised more than $450 million, mostly from Andreessen Horowitz. At the same time, TechCrunch notes that it remains unclear whether community-oriented startups will form a separate major investment category.
