🦃 Issue #22: A Claremont Thanksgiving Feast
Why we are so thankful for the BTL community and some Claremont companies we can't help but show love to
💬 Welcome to issue #22 of Between the Lines
As you are likely aware, this Thursday is a little different than most, and so we thought we would shake it up a bit today. Instead of the usual, today we just wanted to say a few words of thanks to you all, our readers, and also bring a small Claremont Thanksgiving Feast of companies to your attention that we wanted to thank for all their incredibly impactful and meaningful work! Hopefully, this serves as a nice little appetizer for the start of the holiday weekend. 🤤 🦃
~ Josh & Miles
📊 6th Street Stats: A Claremont Thanksgiving Feast
Authors: Josh Tatum & Miles Bird
First and foremost, THANK YOU! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter, getting involved with Between the Lines, engaging with our content, sharing it with your friends, giving us feedback and ideas, offering help, and helping support us in the many ways that you have! The Claremont community is undoubtedly a special one, and we are incredibly thankful for all the support! Miles and I have now been running the newsletter together officially for 22 weeks now, but in reality, this is something that has been in the works for much, much longer. Funnily enough, exactly a year ago today was when Miles and I had our first zoom meeting where he looped me into his idea for this newsletter, and the rest has really taken off from there. We still get stoked about every subscriber that we get, and we can’t wait to share with you all the stuff that is coming up soon. We couldn’t have been able to start this without your help! So, from the bottom of our hearts - thank you!
Additionally, it wouldn’t be a Between the Lines issue if we didn’t hype up some Claremont-founded companies and founders. With that in mind, today we especially wanted to highlight a few of the many companies in our ecosystem that are not just successfully making a profit or raising venture capital dollars, but are also making the world much, much better because of their efforts. Unfortunately (& fortunately), the list could go on and on with Claremont-founded companies that are making a huge impact; but we know there are family members to greet, food to be inhaled, and relaxation to be had, so we had to just pick a small handful to highlight. Good thing that Thanksgiving will happen again! Enough small talk - let’s get to the feast.
Getting us started is MoodSpark! Moodspark was founded back in the summer of 2020 by Eliot Arnold, a Pitzer and CGU alumnus, and the company has now come out of TechStars ‘21. Eliot and co. are building technology for the longevity economy. MoodSpark is a smart display with a digital assistant that detects sadness and uplifts with emotional memories, personalized conversations, and video visits from family and friends. It is the world’s first mood-improving digital companion, and if you are interested, you can sign up for their BETA today and check it out!
Next on the menu is Support Community, founded by Claremont McKenna alumnus Dr. Patrick Morrison. For over five years now, Support Community has built, launched, and improved customizable mobile apps for nonprofits for the community to use and love. They offer customizable therapeutic social communities hosted on their SC Mobile App Platform. The tools in the SC Platform are developed by Clinical and Organizational Psychologists, and Support Community works with Health-Focused Nonprofits that want to increase social support, increase effective communication, launch peer-to-peer fundraising, and further their cause. Their SC Platform also contains a variety of therapeutic tools focused on self-care, social support, health education, resources, organizational efficiency, and fundraising. Crystal Salinas, another CMC alumnus, also works here as Head of Product Development.
Over six years ago, Harvey Mudd alumnus, Morgan Kikuchi-Conbere founded Token Transit after leaving Google as a Software Engineer. Token Transit is now the most advanced platform for drastically improved public transit payment. They partner with over 100 transit agencies in the US and Canada to offer payment solutions on mobile devices, and they provide mobile ticketing and payment verification solutions for public transportation agencies. Token transit believes that well-built, efficient public transit is crucial to the success of a functional city, and that functional cities are vital for the future.
Next up, is a company that just might save your holiday meal from turning into a mad dash to the cabinet for the EpiPen! People with severe allergies live with significant uncertainty at all times, and Allergy Force offers people with food allergies a fully integrated suite of everyday and emergency features in a user-friendly app for iOS and Android phones. The app helps people living with food allergies manage their allergies on the go safely, with more confidence and less anxiety. Allergy Force was founded back in 2015 by Scripps alumnus Gayle Rigione after she spent 10+ years at MasterCard as SVP.
Rounding out today’s feast is Hiki! Hiki — meaning “able” in Hawaiian — is a friendship and dating mobile app for the Autistic community. It is a space where neurodiversity is embraced and being atypical is celebrated. Every part of Hiki, from ideation to design to launch, has been built by Autistic adults to ensure that it is representative of Neurodivergent needs. For over two years now, Pomona alumnus Jamil Karriem and co. have been building friendship and love for the autistic community!
We clearly have many Claremont founders and companies to be thankful for, and hopefully, you enjoyed learning a bit more about some exciting Claremont-founded companies. We are thankful they exist!
Once again, many thanks as well for your continued engagement and support of Between the Lines throughout these last 20+ weeks. We are so appreciative!
Next week we will return to our more typical structure, and until then - we hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving and holiday weekend!
Feedback? We love to hear it. Hit us with an email. 👊🏼