Brian Putnam, founder of connected fitness startup Mirror, is back with a new startup: a tech-powered gaming console that combines the best board games and video games called Board.
After selling Mirror to Lululemon for $500 million in 2020, Putnam returned to entrepreneurship to create an entirely new product, which she unveiled for the first time at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Like Mirror, the board harnesses elements of the real world and the digital world.
The device offers a gaming platform, designed for friends and family to gather together like a board game. However, the game board itself is a screen that recognizes touch, gestures as well as physical objects.
This 24-inch screen is housed in a wood-finish frame. This size allows four to six people to sit and play the game, the founder said.
At launch, the $500 product comes with 12 launch games and 50 game pieces.
Over time, Putnam said AI will be used to customize the device for the user.
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“We’re really excited about the long-term power of AI to personalize experiences on devices. So you can imagine vision and voice input, storytelling that is adaptive, dynamic environments, accessibility features — like translation and voice-to-text,” she said. “Over time, AI will enable virtually anyone to create on the board. So the board becomes much more than a game console. It becomes a place for creative self-expression.”
To create the first game, the startup’s internal game studio partnered with external developers. But the long-term plan is to create more developers for the platform in the future. The company also plans to offer an app store where others can bring their experiences on board.
The board is backed by VC firm Lerer Hippeau, which led Mirror’s $3 million seed round as well as First Round and Box Group. To date, it has raised $15 million and is pursuing a Series A.
When asked how she landed on gaming for her next idea, Putnam responded, “I think games are just universal…With fitness, not everyone likes to work out, and not everyone likes to work out at home, but games really unite us. It’s kind of a universal language that connects us and brings us together,” she said.
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