Merve Isler, Founder and CEO of Marvelous, sits down with Ventureport to discuss how AI can help revenue teams find the right rooms, guests and opportunities.
Updated
July 3, 2026 11:39 AM
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Marvelous, an AI product company. PHOTO: MARVELOUS
Most B2B sales teams spend their days inside software. They track leads in a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, send emails, build outbound lists and measure every digital touchpoint. Still, many important business relationships move forward in person. A dinner after a conference, a small founder roundtable or a private customer event can do what dozens of cold emails cannot: build trust quickly.
That is the gap Marvelous wants to fill. The bootstrapped San Francisco-based AI startup is building what founder and CEO Merve Isler calls “Salesforce, but for real life”. Her idea is simple: if companies already use software to manage digital sales, they should also have software to manage the real-world moments that help close deals.
Marvelous brings data, automation and targeting into in-person go-to-market (GTM) work. It helps B2B sales, revenue, marketing and growth teams plan in-person events such as curated dinners, launch events, mixers, happy hours and conference side events. These formats are already familiar to companies selling to enterprise buyers. The problem is that they are often managed through spreadsheets, venue calls, scattered guest lists and manual follow-ups.
That creates two problems. First, the process is slow. Teams can spend weeks figuring out who to invite, where to host and how to manage responses. Second, the return is hard to measure. Companies spend heavily on conferences, dinners and private events, yet they often do not have a clear way to know whether an event will influence pipeline before they commit the budget.
Marvelous wants to pull those pieces into one AI-powered event management platform.
“Our main target customer is revenue and sales teams,” Isler said. “Because about 40% of deals close in person, but there's no infrastructure built for that—so that's what we do.”
For Isler, the idea comes from experience. Before starting Marvelous, she worked at Google from Istanbul, managing developer product launches and go-to-market programs across Turkey, Central Asia and the Caucasus. During that time, she helped build more than 100 communities around the world and coordinated thousands of events a year across eleven time zones. The work was fast, local and very manual.
That experience shaped the foundation for Marvelous. Isler saw that building products had become easier, while distribution remained difficult. A startup can now ship software faster than ever. Reaching the right people, in the right setting, is still a different challenge.
At Google, Isler had to understand how people gathered, communicated and built trust in different markets. A product launch might require developer meetups in dozens of cities, but the right approach could change from country to country. In Kazakhstan, she said, Telegram worked better than WhatsApp. In Afghanistan, Facebook mattered more. Each market had its own habits, and growth depended on understanding those details. Those details and adapt quickly.
Marvelous grew out of that playbook. Isler saw that offline distribution had patterns, even when it looked chaotic from the outside. The right guest list, the right room, the right timing and the right follow-up could change the outcome of a sales conversation. Most of that knowledge, however, lived in people’s heads. Marvelous is her attempt to turn it into software.
Inside the platform, a company can start by choosing the kind of satellite event it wants to host: a launch event, a mixer, a happy hour, a brunch, a lunch or a dinner. From there, users can connect their CRM. When Salesforce is connected, Marvelous analyzes contacts and creates relationship scores based on signals such as buying intent, past event activity and how warm a relationship appears to be. If a team also uses an event platform such as Luma or Eventbrite, Marvelous can bring that event data into the picture as well.
The product is built around Maven, Marvelous’ AI assistant. Maven can help plan an event through Slack, iMessage or the Marvelous platform itself. For instance, a user might ask Maven to plan an executive dinner for 18 people within a set budget. From there, Maven can find warm contacts, estimate who is likely to attend, build a guest list, recommend venues, send invitations and run follow-up sequences across email, LinkedIn and SMS. The goal is to let sales teams focus on conversations and closing deals instead of worrying about logistics. Put simply, Marvelous helps a company find the right guests, secure the right venue and understand which event format is likely to work. Instead of guessing whether a US$10,000 dinner will pay off, the company gets a clearer view of the potential return.
AI Insiders, Marvelous’ invite-only network of verified AI and enterprise leaders, is also part of the company’s go-to-market strategy. Rather than asking every customer to build an event from scratch, Marvelous can group several companies that want to reach the same audience into one curated event. Such a setting creates revenue, product feedback and fresh data about what works in different markets. The network spans verticals such as cybersecurity, fintech, robotics, healthcare AI and enterprise SaaS. It now includes members from more than 475 companies, with C-level executives making up nearly half of the community. So far, AI Insiders has facilitated more than 2,000 introductions and contributed to over US$560 million in deals. Isler describes it as one of Marvelous’ strongest go-to-market channels.
The first AI Insiders event took place at AWS GenAI Loft in San Francisco in April 2026. It brought together 150 curated guests, including AI founders, tier-one investors, enterprise executives and researchers for an evening focused on high-impact conversations and collaboration.
The timing may work in Marvelous’ favor: Digital outreach is getting louder, and AI will make it easier for companies to send more emails, messages and automated pitches. That may make high-trust in-person conversations more valuable, especially in enterprise sales where relationships take time. At the same time, event budgets need proof. Revenue leaders want to know whether a dinner, roadshow or customer event is worth the cost.
Marvelous is betting that offline sales will become a measurable category for software. If the company can prove that its relationship scores, event intelligence and AI agent help teams create a stronger pipeline, it could become an important tool for B2B go-to-market teams. The core message of Marvelous is easy to understand: the deals may happen in the room, but data can still power the room.
Keep Reading
Examining how robots are moving from demonstrations to daily use.
Updated
January 28, 2026 5:53 PM
An industrial robotic arm capable of autonomous welding. PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK
CES 2026 did not frame robotics as a distant future or a technological spectacle. Instead, it highlighted machines designed for the slow, practical work of fitting into human systems. Across the show floor, robots were no longer performing for attention but being shaped by real-world constraints—space, safety, fatigue and repetition.
They appeared in factories, homes, emergency settings and industrial sites, each responding to a specific kind of human limitation. Together, these four robots reveal how robotics is being redefined: not as a replacement for people, but as infrastructure that quietly takes on work humans are least meant to carry alone.
Hyundai Motor unveiled its electric humanoid robot, Atlas, during a media day on January 5, 2026, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas as part of CES 2026. Developed with Boston Dynamics, Hyundai’s U.S.-based robotics subsidiary, Atlas was presented in two forms: a research prototype and a commercial model designed for real factory environments.
Shown under the theme “AI Robotics, Beyond the Lab to Life: Partnering Human Progress,” Atlas is designed to work alongside humans rather than replace them. The premise is straightforward—robots take on physically demanding and repetitive tasks such as sorting and assembly, while people focus on work requiring judgment, creativity and decision-making.
Built for industrial use, the commercial version of Atlas is designed to adapt quickly, with Hyundai stating it can learn new tasks within a day. Its adult-sized humanoid form features 56 degrees of freedom, enabling flexible, human-like movement. Tactile sensors in its hands and a 360-degree vision system support spatial awareness and precise operation.
Atlas is also engineered for demanding conditions. It can lift up to 50 kilograms, operate in temperatures ranging from –20°C to 40°C and is waterproof, making it suitable for challenging factory settings.
Looking ahead, Hyundai expects Atlas to begin with parts sorting and sequencing by 2028, move into assembly by 2030 and later take on precision tasks that require sustained physical effort and focus.
Widemount’s Smart Firefighting Robot is designed to operate in environments that are difficult and dangerous for humans to enter. Developed by Widemount Dynamics, a spinout from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the robot is built to support emergency teams during fires, particularly in enclosed and smoke-filled spaces.
The robot can move through buildings and industrial facilities even when visibility is near zero. Rather than relying on cameras or GPS, it uses radar-based mapping to understand its surroundings and determine a safe path forward. This allows it to continue operating when smoke, heat or debris would normally restrict access.
As it approaches a fire, the robot analyses the burning object. Its onboard AI helps identify the material involved and selects an appropriate extinguishing method. Sensors simultaneously assess flame intensity and send real-time updates to command centres, giving responders clearer situational awareness.
When actively fighting a fire, the robot can aim directly at the source and deploy extinguishing agents autonomously. The system continuously adjusts its actions based on incoming sensor data, reducing the need for constant human intervention during high-risk situations.
At CES 2026, LG Electronics offered a glimpse into how household work could gradually shift from people to machines. The company introduced LG CLOiD, an AI-powered home robot designed to manage everyday chores by working directly with connected appliances within LG’s ThinQ ecosystem.
Designed for indoor living spaces, CLOiD features a compact upper body with two articulated arms, a head unit and a wheeled base that enables steady movement across floors. Its torso can tilt to adjust height, allowing it to reach items placed low or on kitchen counters. The arms and hands are built for careful handling, enabling the robot to grip common household objects rather than heavy tools. The head also functions as a mobile control unit, housing cameras, sensors, a display and voice interaction capabilities for communication and monitoring.
In practice, CLOiD acts as a task coordinator. It can retrieve items from appliances, operate ovens and washing machines and manage laundry cycles from start to finish, including folding and stacking clothes. By connecting multiple devices through the ThinQ system, the robot turns separate appliances into a single, coordinated workflow.
These capabilities are supported by LG’s Physical AI system. CLOiD uses vision to recognise objects and interpret its surroundings, language processing to understand instructions and action control to execute tasks step by step. Together, these systems allow the robot to follow routines, respond to user input and adjust task execution over time.
Doosan Robotics introduced Scan & Go at CES 2026, an AI-driven robotic system designed to automate large-scale surface repair and inspection. The solution targets environments with complex, irregular surfaces that are difficult to pre-program, such as aircraft structures, wind turbine blades and large industrial installations.
Scan & Go operates by scanning surfaces on site and building an understanding of their shape in real time. Instead of relying on detailed digital models or manual coding, the system plans its movements based on live data. This enables it to adapt to variations in size, curvature and surface condition without extensive setup.
The underlying technology combines 3D sensing with AI-based motion planning. The system interprets surface data, generates tool paths and refines its actions as work progresses. In practical terms, this reduces manual intervention while maintaining consistency across large work areas.
By handling surface preparation and inspection tasks that are time-consuming and physically demanding, Scan & Go is positioned as a support tool for industrial teams operating at scale.
Taken together, these robots signal a clear shift in how machines are being designed and deployed. Across factories, homes, emergency sites and industrial infrastructure, robotics is moving beyond demonstrations and into practical roles that support human work.
The unifying theme is not replacement, but relief—robots taking on tasks that are repetitive, hazardous or physically demanding. CES 2026 suggests that robotics is evolving from spectacle to utility, with a growing focus on systems that adapt to real environments, respond to genuine constraints and integrate into everyday workflows.