Meshi

Most people at an event talk to whoever is standing closest, because walking up to a stranger is the hardest part of being in a room full of people. Meshi gives each attendee a wingman over plain text, with no app to download: say who you are and what you are looking for, and it introduces you to the people in the room who want to meet you too, then helps you follow up afterwards.

Organisers say networking is the main reason people come to their events, and then leave it to chance. Event apps do wayfinding and community apps do posts, so the connecting falls to whoever happens to be a natural connector, and for the large share of people who find a room full of strangers frightening it never happens at all. They drift, and next time they do not come back.

Meshi treats networking as an accessibility problem and builds the ramp. An attendee texts the event's number with who they are and who they hope to meet; the wingman finds the mutual fits in the room, asks both sides, and makes the introduction, with reminders and more introductions after the event so a one-night crowd turns into a community. Organisers get real meetings in a dashboard rather than badge scans, and the member data stays theirs: outside AI assistants get answers through the organiser's front door, never the list. Founded in Palo Alto by Tom O'Malley.