A daily newsletter summarizing recent activity & interesting start-ups globally
RECENT NOTABLE ACTIVITY – PR TECH
- Social Native, a platform for branded content on demand, has closed a $8M seed round. Link
- Takumi, an influencer marketing platform, has raised a $4M Series A financing round to fuel its US and global expansion. Link
- Popular Pays, an influencer marketplace, has raised around $3M in Series A funding round. Link
- Ripjar, a data intelligence platform, has raised $4.5M in follow-on funding from Winton. Link
- Hootsuite has acquired Naritiv, an analytics solution for SnapChat. Link
- Tickr has acquired Market.Space, a company that provides visualizations of competitive data in real time, across a variety of online sources, including news, blogs, social media, videos, and apps. Link
- Music Audience Exchange, an influencer marketing platform to connect brands and artists, has raised $6M in Series A round. Link
- Meltwater has acquired an Oxford University spin-out Wrapidity to add AI to its media monitoring capabilities. Link
- NewsWhip, a social signals platform, has raised $6.4M to give newsrooms the data to spot breaking stories and trends. Link
- Meltwater, a media intelligence solution provider, has closed a $60M debt funding round with Silicon Valley Bank, and Vector Capital in order to ramp up strategic acquisitions. Link
- Local Measure, a location-based social media monitoring platform, has raised $4.5M in a funding round. Link
- Talkwalker, a Luxembourg-based social media analytics startup, has raised $5.2M in funding from the Dutch software investor Main Mezzanine Capital. Link
- Reputation.com, a SaaS-based online reputation management platform, has raised $20M in funding in a round led by Ascension Ventures along with participation from existing investors. Link
- Tracx, a Social Media management platform, has raised $12.5M in growth financing in a round led by Camden Partners, with participation by Edison Partners and Tracx CEO Rick Rudman. Link
- Signal media, an AI based media monitoring solution, has raised $7.4M in a Series A funding round. Link
SOME INTERESTING STARTUPS FOUND
IndiPR (2016, Gurgaon) – Automated platform to boost PR releases through influencer marketing. Uses a proprietary algorithm to identify the best bloggers based on an internal rating system and PR release category.
Trapica Labs (2016, Tel Aviv) – Automated Social Media audience segmentation platform using machine learning and AI to optimize campaign performance in real time based on converted users.
LEADER BOARD – PR TECH
PR Suite
Cision (1892, Chicago, Acq.) – Provides integrated PR Software. Offers media monitoring and analysis, Content Distribution, media database. Acquired PRWeb, HARO, iContact, Viralheat, Visible Technologies. Acquired by GTCR in 2014.
Marketwired (1994, Toronto, Acq.) – Provides news distribution and social communication solutions to public relations, investor relations and marketing professionals representing companies from start-up to Fortune 500. Acquired by Nasdaq in 2016.
Content Creation
Scripted (2011, SF, $14.5M) – Online marketplace to connect freelance writers with companies who need written content. Used for writing blog posts,articles, social media updates etc. Backed by Crosslink Capital and Redpoint Ventures.
CrowdSource (2010, Illinois, $12.5M) – Provides full-service crowdsourcing solutions to accomplish labor-intensive tasks at scale, such as content creation. Backed by Highland Capital Partners.
Visually (2011, SF, $16M, Acq.) – Marketplace for creating visual content like infographics, video, data visualizations or presentations. Backed by Crosslink Capital, Correlation Ventures, SoftTechVC. Got acquired by ScribbleLive in 2016.
Ebyline (2009, Sherman Oaks, $6.5M, Acq.) – Online marketplace for freelance journalists. Provides photos, videos, and infographics in addition to text content. Acquired by IZEA in 2015.
Content Distribution
PR Newswire (1954, NYC, Acq.) – Offers tools to distribute news to journalists, bloggers and key influencers worldwide. Amplifies and optimizes the content as well as measures the impact of the news. Acquired by Cision in 2015.
Business Wire (1961, SF, Acq.) – Transmits full-text news releases, regulatory filings, photos and other multimedia content to journalists,media outlets, Investors, Social networks and other audiences. Acquired by Berkshire Hathaway in 2006.
Analytics – Media Monitoring
Brandwatch (2007, Brighton, $64M) – Provides a social media monitoring platform that crawls over 80 million sites and parses that information to provide insights to businesses like analysing trends, campaigns and competitors. Backed by Highland Capital Partners and Nauta Capital.
Trendkite (2012, Austin, $36M) – Provides media monitoring and analytics. Uses NLP and big data analytics to model the PR ecosystem.Backed by Adam Street Partners, Silverton Partners and Mercury Fund.
Zignal Labs (2011, SF, $28M) – Helps brands and organizations monitor online media in real time. Offers Dashboard which updates automatically to show current analysis-sentiment, influencers, competition and indicate story trajectory. Backed by Andy Ballard, Managing Partner of Figtree Partners; Mitchell Cohen, Manager of Ross Investment Associates; and Jim Hornthal, co-founder and Chairman of Zignal Labs.
Analytics – Social Monitoring
NetBase (2004, Mountain View, $87M) – Provides a social intelligence platform that enables brands to publish, monitor, analyze and engage with customers in real time. Uses a proprietary natural language processing engine combined with text analytics and machine learning to process social media data. Backed by Altos Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, MMV Financial, WestSummit Capital, SAIF Partners, ORIX Ventures.
Curalate (2012, Philadelphia, $40M) – Applies image recognition algorithms to social media conversations and scours the social web including Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook to find people communicating about the user’s brand in pictures. Backed by First Round Capital, NEA, MentorTech Ventures and Vayner/RSE.
Influencer Marketing
Augure (2002, Paris, $36.5M) – Enables PR and Marketing practitioners to identify and engage their key influencers, perform online media monitoring, analyze the impact of campaign on lead generation and sales volume. Backed by Serena Capital, Ventech, OTC Agregator and Amundi.
TapInfluence (2009, Boulder, $23M) – Offers Influencer Marketplace, on which brands can bring in their own influencers or search a database of more than 100,000 content creators based on things like reach, topic, and audience demographics. Backed by Grotech Ventures and Access Venture Partners.
Other companies in this sector include:
IZEA (2006, Orlando, IPO) – Online marketplace that connects brands with influential content creators with a network of 850,000 registered influencers in 147 countries and 50,000 registered advertisers. Went IPO in July 2011.
theAudience (2011, West Hollywood, $20M, Acq.) – Creates content and amplifies it through a select network of influencers. Provides MCN management, video syndication and detailed performance analytics. Acquired by Al Ahli Holding Group in 2015.
CRM- PR
Babbler (2013, New York, $2.5M) – Allows PR professionals to share and store latest news, content, events, speakers with media communities through a centralized dashboard. Backed by CM Cic Private Capital, Omnes Capital, FRED & FARID MEDIA, Fashion Capital Partners.
Leaderboard includes all the top funded, IPO and successfully running bootstrapped companies along with their location, founding year and funding amount.
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