The app in question was provided by a 5-month-old company, Shadow Inc., which failed to develop and test the product adequately. The CEO and founder, Tara McGowan, also founded the ACRONYM corporation in 2017 and Courier Newsroom in 2019. Her husband, Michael Halle, is a senior strategist to the campaign of Pete Buttigieg. Multiple unverified claims of the Buttigieg campaign funding the organization, having investment interests in, and even sharing partial ownership in either company have been made. However, the only verified transactions between the Buttigieg campaign and either entity is a contract for text and messages services. The Joe Biden campaign had also contracted with Shadow, Inc for the same services, as well as former candidate Kristen Gillibrand. After the app failure, McGowan distanced herself and ACRONYM from Shadow Inc., stating that it was an "independent" entity. Both companies are founded and directed by McGowan and Halle, and they share the same registered address. While the corporation's official website doesn't officially name its members, data gathered from LinkedIn reveals that its top executives were all involved in one way or another with Hillary Clinton's 2016 election campaign. James Hickey (Shadow, Inc.'s Chief Operating Officer) and Krista Davis (its Chief Software Architect) were both vital to the digital aspect of her campaign.