Dani Lopez

I’m a born and raised New Yorker hailing from The Bronx, and proud daughter of a single immigrant mom. We were survivors of domestic violence and, as the oldest of two kids, I had to become a translator, first of languages (English/Spanish) and then of bureaucratic systems to help my family access the resources we needed to survive. I’ve spent much of my life learning how to jump through bureaucratic hoops to access crucial resources from food to medicine to education. I’ve experienced first-hand the cost in time, stress, and shame of badly designed systems. I entered the social impact tech space motivated by the desire to bring innovation to these rigid bureaucracies in our benefits systems because it should not be so complicated and painful to feed our families. That’s why Lulo is starting with WIC, the Women, Infants, Children federal food and nutrition program.

Unlike food benefit programs such as SNAP, WIC highly restricts choice. Participants spend hours in the store looking for the right brands and sizes that are WIC-approved. Participants frequently select incorrect items resulting in stigmatizing experiences at the register where they leave without redeeming all of their benefits and in the long run stop utilizing the WIC program. Every year over $1 billion in WIC benefits go unredeemed, which means families miss out on food on their tables, and food manufacturers and retailers lose revenue. We created Lulo to turn those dollars into food on families tables, economic benefit for the businesses that feed our communities, and to support the proven outcomes of the WIC program for maternal and infant health. We've interviewed, shopped with, and prototype tested with over 85 WIC families to build a platform that's as easy to use as it is delightful.

Lulo’s software matches WIC participant benefits with state Approved Product Lists (APLs) allowing benefits tracking & discoverability of high quality name WIC products to remove the time, stress, and stigma of WIC shopping, allowing participants to fully redeem their benefits while providing brands with the only digital advertising channel to reach WIC families.