Press Kit

What is Toucan

Toucan is a platform that is specifically designed to bring people and communities together in a natural, more human way. The dynamic nature of Toucan allows you to move from group to group as you please, all while keeping track of what’s happening around you. Interacting virtually has felt weird. That’s because we haven’t had the right tools, up until now. After one heinous birthday party over traditional video conferencing software, co-founders Antonia and Ethan Hellman realized that the virtual events environment lacked fluidity. They brought Ivo, Michel, and Paul on board to help build the solution to everybody’s problem: Toucan.

Together, the Toucan team created the platform that gives agency back to the users. With their keen focus on social psychology and the help of their scientific collaborators, they built the closest thing to being in one room with all your friends. What’s so different about Toucan? Simple. It’s the way that it makes you feel when you’re on it. You feel free. You feel in control. You feel happy. You feel human.

Founders

Michel Cassius

Co-founder, Exec Chairman

Michel Cassius is a co-founder and Executive Chairman of Toucan. His career in the technology industry spans large companies to start-ups.

Michel held executive positions at Apple, Electronic Arts (EA) and Microsoft, where he launched Xbox and Xbox Live across Europe. More recently, Michel was CEO of Bookatable for the Michelin Group. Bookatable was acquired by TripAdvisor at the end of 2019.

Michel has held executive and non-executive positions at several startups and early-stage growth companies. He co-founded YoYo Games which was acquired by Playtech in 2015.

In the spirit of “giving back”, Michel has been a Techstars mentor in London for a number of years, as well as an investor in early-stage companies.

Antonia Hellman

Co-founder, Co-CEO

Antonia Hellman is a co-founder and co-CEO of Toucan. She is a senior at Stanford University studying political science, economics, and management science & engineering.

Prior to Toucan, her career experience has been in data science and political campaigning.

Ethan Hellman

Co-founder, Co-CEO

Ethan Hellman is co-founder and co-CEO of Toucan. He is a sophomore at Stanford studying computer science.

Ivo Rothschild

Co-founder

Ivo Rothschild is co-founder of Toucan. He is a full-stack developer with 30 years of experience in client/server, real-time, stock market data, telephony, speech, and AI engineering.

He was formerly project manager for Quicken Quotes Live and VP of R&D at Clarify Inc. He has a computer science degree from McGill University.

Paul Murphy

Co-founder

Paul Murphy is a co-founder of Toucan. He is a serial entrepreneur, having built 6 previous startups with 3 successful exits. He has technical management experience working across the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. He attended Columbia College.

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