PALO ALTO, Calif., October 14, 2026 — HiHello today launched the Professional Presence and Lead Capture Platform, a single system that lets companies manage how their people show up in every interaction and capture the connections those people make for the company. The launch comes with a new essay from co-founder and CEO Dr. Manu Kumar, who argues that as AI takes over more routine work, human relationships become the most valuable thing a business has.
After rolling out HiHello at thousands of companies, Kumar says the same three problems appear in every industry. Leads that employees meet at events rarely make it into the CRM. The company brand shows up inconsistently in email signatures and on video calls, the moments when prospects pay the most attention. And when an employee leaves, the relationships they built leave with them. “It’s almost as if companies have forever been operating with a leaky bucket,” Kumar said. “It adds up to revenue the company paid for and never saw.”
The platform has two parts: Professional Presence and Lead Capture. Professional Presence covers the whole company and includes digital business cards, email signatures with banner campaigns, virtual backgrounds, and a company directory. Marketing manages it all centrally, so everything stays current and on brand. Lead Capture serves customer-facing teams. Anyone can scan a card or badge from their phone, and the contact lands in Salesforce, HubSpot, or Microsoft Dynamics 365, ready for nurture, while the conversation is still warm, tagged to the event where it happened.
Kumar, a Stanford computer science PhD and an early investor in Lyft and Twilio through K9 Ventures, uses AI every day. “When everyone has the same models and the same tools, the scarce thing isn’t another agent,” he said. “It’s a real relationship with another person.”
HiHello’s customers are already seeing results. “Since launching HiHello four months ago, we’ve already captured more than 9,000 leads and influenced over $540,000 in contract value. While both new and veteran sellers have embraced the platform, it’s been especially valuable for our new hires who are focused on quickly building their books of business. We’ve also seen tremendous value in HiHello’s tradeshow lead capture capabilities, making it easier to track engagement and measure ROI from our events. HiHello has quickly become a valuable tool for our sales organization.” said Mandy Febus, Chief Marketing Officer, Valpak Clipp.
“Every growth-focused team is under pressure right now to hand more to AI and automation, and a lot of that makes sense.” said Britton Johnson, Founder, Voluntary Insurance Partners. “But there are things we know people should handle, and in our business, trust is one of them. When everything is pushing toward less human, being able to see where our people are actually connecting lets us make the case for those moments. We get to use technology for what it does best and still show the power of a real human connection. There's nothing more important in the relationship business than someone looking you in the eye and having a handshake with you. HiHello is a great tool to keep that handshake memory alive."
“I have always believed that magic happens when humans connect,” Kumar said. “HiHello exists to amplify the power and possibility of human connection.”
The platform is available today at www.hihello.com.
Read more about human connections in the age of AI, and learn more about Professional Presence and Lead Capture.
About HiHello
HiHello is the Professional Presence and Lead Capture Platform. Marketing teams use it to give every employee a consistent, on-brand presence across digital business cards, email signatures, and virtual backgrounds. Customer-facing teams use it to capture the connections they make directly into the company CRM. More than 2,500 companies use HiHello. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, HiHello exists to amplify the power and possibility of human connection. Learn more at hihello.com.
Media Contact
Shanan Burman
HiHello, Inc.
press@hihello.com
