Founded in 2012, Candid™ is a world renowned social discovery platform that delivers cutting edge user‑generated media experiences to improve engagement for brands.
We provide marketers the tools they need to easily weave on-brand user-generated content into their own marketing experiences. Our intuitive content management system allows brands and publishers to inject social content into branded websites, ads, mobile apps and physical displays, enabling a richer exploration of products and services that ultimately improves conversions and revenue.
Powering Real-time Content Marketing Experiences
Candid helps shape evergreen content marketing opportunities through a thoughtful and strategic approach
Our philosophy is that simplification often means the difference between good and amazing. Ten years ago, we set out to challenge market leaders with a more transparent approach that we knew could deliver better performance at a fraction of the cost. By remaining lean, maintaining optionality, and "listening to everyone", we believe we're well positioned to lead the transformation of the Visual Commerce category that we helped create. Rather than trying to do everything in one monolithic system, Candid’s approach is to be more intelligent and thinner, plugging in many smaller specialized applications and leveraging a wealth of data to deliver relevant recommendations across key customer touch points.
Leadership Team
Nariman Haghighi
Nariman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Candid, serving as both technical architect and full-stack operator for nearly two decades. A University of Waterloo Computer Science graduate, he's built internet-scale applications across Silicon Valley, Canada, and international markets. At Candid, Nariman oversees platform infrastructure, enterprise integrations, and global partnerships—building trust systems that connect brands, platforms, and consumers in the evolving landscape of social and AI commerce.
Daniel Whitefield
Daniel has spent 12 years building Candid's trust infrastructure and partnership ecosystem for social commerce. With expertise spanning sales, technical integration, and strategic partnerships, he specializes in bridging merchant operations with platform evolution. He's currently focused on trust signal standardization for AI commerce and exploring how reputation systems can scale in agentic economies.
Our Advisors
Melvin Battiston
Mel is a persuasive software industry executive with gravitas, high EQ, creative ideas and analytical pragmatism. Mel has crafted, sold and deployed many multi-million-dollar pan-enterprise software solutions.
Verticals – Retail, Media, Finance, Telecom, Gaming, High-Tech, HealthCare, Supply Chain, Manufacturing
Visit him at ca.linkedin.com/in/melbattiston or email him directly at mel.battiston@gmail.com.
Thomas Corrales
Thomas is the CEO of Unlimited Furniture Group, a leading furniture retailer. He's an expert and much sought-after consultant for social media marketing, particularly Instagram.
You can find him on LinkedIn or email him directly at tcorrales@unlimitedfurnituregroup.com.
Rob Manne
A passionate, creative corporate communicator, marketer, and storyteller, Rob has spent 15 years building brands and helping them succeed in a disrupted world. He’s won awards but prefers stellar business wins. And riding his bike. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram @robmanne.
Scott Howlett
An engineer by schooling, a marketer at heart, and a proven business leader by experience. Scott co-founded imason with Jeff Dunmall in 1999. The business grew from 2 to 30+ people during this time period as imason staked out a space as a market leader in Microsoft-based technology solutions, especially Sharepoint-based solutions.
Specialties: Business leadership, Online growth strategy and implementation, Internet technologies and trends.
Media Kit
Founding Investors
