Santa Cruz Works New Tech 06MAY2026

Join us on May 6 on the rooftop at Anton Pacific, one of our all-time favorite venues, where sweeping views of the San Lorenzo River, the Boardwalk, and Monterey Bay set the stage for a night of big ideas and even bigger connections.

Your ticket includes food and drinks during our Networking Hour from 6–7pm — then at 7pm, six brilliant founders take the stage for fast-paced 5-minute company presentations. This lineup is seriously stacked:

🌿 Jane Technologies / Socrates Rosenfeld Founded in Santa Cruz, Jane Technologies — known as iHeart Jane — is the cannabis industry's leading e-commerce platform, connecting shoppers with real-time dispensary menus and seamless online ordering across 2,500+ dispensaries and brands. With a first-of-its-kind POS system and deep local roots, Jane is proof that world-class retail tech can be built right here on the Central Coast.

💡 Light Links / Wayne Fenton & Firouz Vafadari A Santa Cruz Works Accelerates alum and Launchpad 2025 winner, Light Links is revolutionizing wireless connectivity with Wi-OW™ — a patent-pending diffused laser technology that delivers fiber-optic speeds over the air, with latency of ~1.5μs and data rates 10x faster than Wi-Fi. They're targeting AI-driven robotics and defense applications where standard wireless simply can't keep up.

🧠 Tana / Olav Sindre Kriken All the way from Norway, Tana is an agentic meeting platform that doesn't just take notes — it does the work while you talk, with AI agents that open PRs, generate storyboards, and file bugs in real time. Every session feeds an organizational memory graph so your team always knows what was decided, why, and by whom. If your company runs on meetings, Tana turns all those hours into something that actually ships.

💛 Afterglo / Kimberly Calvert Afterglo is an emotionally intelligent dating companion app that helps people show up better in their relationships — from discovering your Relational Archetype to AI-powered icebreakers, conversation analysis, and date curation. A smart compass for human connection, designed to make the vulnerable work of dating a little less daunting and a lot more intentional.

✨ Two more presenters coming soon!

Sponsored by Comcast Business and Greater Zurich Area. Free parking in the underground garage.

Exhibitor tables available — visit Sponsors > Networker / Launchpad. SCW Partners: use your promo code to waive table fees.

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Host or Publisher Santa Cruz Works