Empowering Sensory-Friendly Social Experiences with 5enses

One of our favorite parts of working with startups is seeing ideas grow from a spark of inspiration into tools that change people’s lives. Some founders come to us with a fully mapped out product ready to be built. Others start with a vision and the determination to make it real, while relying on our experience to navigate the realities of creating something new. Wherever they are in that journey, we love helping them find the right next step.

What is 5enses?

5enses (Senses) is an app designed for neurodivergent people who experience sensory challenges in everyday environments. Bright lights, loud sounds, crowded spaces, or temperature fluctuations can make social activities stressful or even inaccessible.

5enses empowers its users with real-time data about environments, so they can know ahead of time what to expect. Users complete a fun and insightful “sensory animal” test through the app, which helps tailor personalized recommendations. From there, they’ll receive suggestions on sensory-friendly places that best fit their needs.

The goal: make social experiences more inclusive, accessible, and enjoyable for everyone.

The Journey So Far

Startups often grow in stages, and 5enses is a great example of how vision evolves into reality:

• They began with a simple but powerful question: how can we make the world more sensory-inclusive?
• With support from their community and matching grants from our team and MatchBOX, they turned that vision into a design prototype.
• Today, they’re focusing on validating the business by sending out interest surveys, gathering feedback, and working to secure funding that will fuel development for their MVP.

This is exactly the kind of story we love to see unfold.

Why This Matters

For individuals navigating sensory sensitivities, having access to the right information can mean the difference between staying home and being able to fully participate in life’s experiences. By creating a tool that bridges this gap, 5enses is helping redefine accessibility. And for us, supporting founders like these reminds us why we do what we do.

How We Counterpart

Building something from scratch is never simple. It takes vision, but it also takes the right support, whether that is creating a financial model, refining a pitch deck, preparing for fundraising, building an MVP, or scaling to reach a wider audience.

We specialize in meeting founders where they are:

• If you’ve secured full funding and need to accelerate product development, we can help.
• If you’re just sketching your idea on a napkin and wondering how to make it real, we can help.
• And if you’re somewhere in between and need both strategic guidance and technical partnership, we can help.

We’re proud to continue walking alongside 5enses as they move into their next phase. Startups like theirs remind us that innovation isn’t just about technology, it’s about creating solutions that make life better.

If you’re a founder with a vision, whether you’re at the idea stage, fundraising stage, or ready to build, we’d love talk.