In the article itself the the team did break down the photos taken with whom they represent such as IDEX, dock, omisego, spaceshift and so on. These are real photographs at the events and are not made up.
It is also important to note that while some of the meetings are new, the team actively attends such conferences to make such connections that would hopefully build into a partnership in time with their apps being integrated onto the ESS platform.
Lastly, once any partnership deal has been signed with NDAs cleared, I'm sure they will have a proper official announcement too.
I didn't say that this is not real photography. But as i said everyone can meet different known people at conferences and make photo with them (like people making photo with Ceo of Binance for example, but this does not mean that they have partnerships or will be listed there or photo with Vitalik Buterin). So I asked which exact partnerships they have?
Essentia have many different partners and partnerships, too many to list here infact. If you head to the Announcement Channel and search "Partnership" you will see the list for yourself:
https://t.me/essentiaone