“Happy Birthday!” via text message, email or social media post does not have the same appeal as a real card in the mailbox.
Cousins Andrew Gold and Aaron Albert want to revive the art of sending greeting cards for Generation Z and Millennials with their startup Escargot. “People want to feel human,” Albert said in the interview.
Money from investors
Escargot, which launched in February, makes it possible to send physical greeting cards for any occasion – birthdays, holidays, congratulations – directly from the mobile app or website. Individual cards cost around eight dollars (around 6.78 euros), subscriptions start at around ten dollars (around 8.47 euros) per month for two card credits that can be transferred.
The startup recently raised $2.75 million (approximately €2.55 million) in seed funding from investors including Wischoff Ventures, Hannah Gray and South Park Commons. “This greeting card industry is huge,” Gold said. According to Grand View Research, the US card market was worth about $7.1 billion in 2025.
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Gold explained that most birthdays in the app fall in the year 2000 or later. “That’s where our big opportunity lies,” said Gold. “But we also want to appeal to millennials and older target groups.” As AI has taken over the internet and social media feels less social, analog media is making a comeback: landline phones, photo booths, record players.
This “cultural shift,” says Albert, signaled to the Escargot founders that now was a good time to bring a product to market that combines nostalgia for paper products with modern technology from Silicon Valley.
“We are not Luddites (“technophiles”) Note d. Red.),” said Albert. “We won’t demonize the technology.” Instead, Escargot’s founders want to use technology and AI to create a more social version of the internet.
“We didn’t pitch ourselves as an AI company,” Gold said. “We will use them in interesting ways to enable certain experiences.” Escargot CEO Gold previously worked at Apple and Coinbase, while Escargot CMO Albert is a former child actor and founder of mental health startup Felt.
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AI as a tool to create real connections
Escargot uses AI on multiple levels. If the available card designs do not fit the desired occasion, Escargot offers the option of “remixing” the card using AI via Google Gemini. Users can also upload their own photos.
The app also uses AI to make recommendations on when to send cards to friends when given access to calendars and contacts.
Escargot is not the only company betting on this market. Hallmark, a leading greeting card provider, also offers an app that can be used to send paper cards and set reminders.
In the investor presentation, Escargot emphasized that the company wants to grow beyond greeting cards, with features for coupons and other ways to connect people.
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Escargot is among several AI-era startups equipping users with tools to strengthen real-world relationships. Retro, a photo-sharing social media platform, offers a postcard feature that makes sending pictures as easy as posting them online. Rodeo, founded by former Hinge execs, uses AI to make meeting friends in real life easier.
Escargot employs five full-time employees, including Gold and Albert, and plans to invest the recently received funding into expanding its product ecosystem.
Read exclusively the Notion memo Escargot used to pitch:
Note: Some details have been redacted.
