Our Story

Airoma's beginnings trace back to the summer of 2016 when Airoma's founder Eli was just in middle school and starting to play the hit game Pokemon GO. During that summer, Eli became eager to go outside every day to explore the town with new friends catching Pokemon but once back home and scrolling on social media the emotions were the opposite. Social platforms were filled with political arguments, popularity contests, and annoying ads.

That's when Eli questioned,

"How does this game get me outside socializing better than the current social media apps? "

Since then the concept of a social benefiting platform that gets people outside and caring for their mental health was planted. Keep in mind Eli was just about to enter high school. From then the business plan was created and the early development got started. During high school, Eli drafted and submitted a patent application for this idealization:

‍US62876449 - System and methods for displaying social media and retail content in augmented reality space.

‍This is also when Eli met Jimmy, our Chief Marketing Officer. Ironically Eli and Jimmy shared the same exact birthday (yes same day, month, and year) Around this time our name was “Aura” until our trademark application got denied to a 360-degree camera named “Orah”. It actually took a long while before we changed our name to Airoma. The naming came from combing Air + Roaming for our goal of getting people outside exploring and the pronunciation of aroma which has the definition “A distinctive, intangible quality; an aura.” (a-ha! we found a way back to our original name)

After high school, Eli went to Indiana University to study Entrepreneurship, Sociology, and Computer science. Jimmy stayed in our hometown to study Marketing and Communications. While on campus, more customer discovery took place and we saw that students are so commonly hooked to social media and they keep using the platform due to there not being any better alternative. We also learned that many small businesses that make up a town’s personality are struggling with ineffective ads that they can barely afford. Both of these reasons are what motivate Airoma to create a new experience that can help users and businesses.

Airoma is now ventured backed by Elevate Ventures and student-founded. The rest of our story is still to be written as we are finishing our development and soon to launch. If you are looking to see our latest updates you can add your email to our wait list where we will send all the newest updates! 💙 💚