Enplug

Enplug is an American technology company headquartered in Culver City, California that offers software for digital displays, allowing real-time social media interaction between brands and users. The company is a software licensing business.
As of 2014, Enplug had displays in hundreds of businesses in forty cities.
History.
Enplug is part of the emerging Los Angeles startup community, dubbed "Silicon Beach" The company is a graduate of StartEngine, founded by Howard Marks, in September 2012. Since its founding, the company has received awards such as placement on both the Inc. Magazine and Forbes "30 Under 30" lists.
CEO.
Nanxi Liu is the CEO of Enplug. Nanxi Liu made the Forbes 30 under 30 list and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2012. She founded two startups before she turned 25: Enplug, a software licensing business headquartered in Culver City, California, and Nanoly Bioscience, which worked with developing polymers in order to preserve vaccines without refrigeration. At school, she was inspired by her projects in the engineering class that she was taking and believed that these gadgets she was making should extend beyond the classroom. She was competing with her classmates and was winning prizes of ten million dollars, which inspired her to take it further and pursue entrepreneurship. She founded Nanoly Bioscience her senior year of college where she collaborated with a biochemist, and was the CEO of Nanoly while finishing her degree. Her innovative start-up is still going strong today. One of the most impressive accomplishments received by the company was the Top Research Award. They have also won the Young Innovator Award sponsored by Microsoft and Nokia. They also received funding from Intel, Dell, Duke University and Colorado State University. Enplug was her second startup, which she founded with four other people that she met right before graduation from UC Berkeley. One of Nanxi’s most important values is teamwork. She doesn’t call her co-workers “employees”, but she calls them her “teammates” instead. She is the CEO and talks about how there were five of them total, but they realized that one of their teammates was not a good fit, so they now have four co-founders. She is very strong willed and passionate, and does not think that people should give up on tasks easily. She values the fact that she has privilege: the privilege to make the most of each and every day. In addition to her two startups, she also focuses on her other extracurriculars. Nanxi has a passion for music. This includes the piano, the cello, and the violin. She admires having the ability to put work aside and have more substance and variation in her life, and she thinks that business should not consume an entrepreneurs life entirely. Rather, they should have many different interests and hobbies. She looks up to Elon Musk, because she thinks that it is so interesting to be able to have different startups in so many different industries. She can connect this to her own success with Enplug, Nanoly Bioscience, and her passion for music. Nanxi Liu is an Asian female who immigrated to the United States. She believes that the double standards for female entrepreneurs are very apparent. This could explain why Nanxi Liu is not very widely known for all of her tremendous work in such different industries, and for being a CEO of two different startups before the age of thirty. Between her Asian heritage and being a female, she has not been on the radar of many people. This could be because she works with other men, so she may be overshadowed by them because society expects it from them, when in reality, Liu has accomplished so many incredible things at such a young age. 
Funding.
In April, 2014, Enplug raised $2.5 million through seed funding, which came from a number of investors, such as Larry Keele, co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management; Rasoul Oskouy, founding member of Juniper Networks; Bill Gross, founder of Idealab; Hossein Eslambolchi, former President and CTO at AT&T; David Cohen, Executive Vice President at Interscope Records; Justin Caldbeck, Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners; Troy Carter, CEO at Atom Factory; Activision co-founder Howard Marks; Amidi Group, DominateFund, and zPark Venture.
Product.
Enplug's social media displays allow end-users to interact with brands in real-time through their existing social media accounts. Enplug displays support multiple social media apps, including Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, and Instagram using a business's custom hashtag. Enplug's software is flexible, where it isn't limited to its own use, and allows customers to customize by installing apps created by third-party developers. The company generated a SDK, where developers can create and sell apps.
The displays also act as advertising space for partners. Content can be deployed by advertisers, to a screen of their choice. Enplug is a SaaS platform, where business owners pay to access its software on a monthly basis.
Culture.
Enplug has received press coverage in relation to its company culture. As of last year, 12 of the 37 employees lived and worked out of a six-bedroom, three-bathroom Ranch-style house in Bel Air, California.
For most employees, the company pays for "food, rent, and utilities." "The Wall Street Journal" wrote of Enplug's culture in an article about the company: "Employees and managers meet, work, eat, clean, exercise and sleep in the same space. And while there are occasional uncomfortable moments, such as nudging your boss to do the dishes, companies like Enplug say it is good for professional relationships, saves on rent and travel costs and is often just plain fun." "Forbes" reported that the purpose of living together was for the employees to "blur the lifestyle divide" between work and living. The culture is very important to Enplug. CEO Nanxi Liu stated, “I actually think the company would have failed if we didn’t live together."
References.
https://nextshark.com/nanxi-liu-enplug/
https://www.forbes.com/profile/nanxi-liu/?sh=62b550618752
https://www.levelingup.com/growth-everywhere-interview/nanxi-liu-enplug/
https://2019.getglobal.co/nanxi-liu-ceo-enplug/