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River Capital Group Launches New Venture Arm, RCG Ventures

River Capital Group Holdings

River Capital Group Holdings (River Capital), a leading family investment office, today announced the launch of RCG Ventures. A wholly owned subsidiary of River Capital, RCG Ventures’ investment strategy will focus on supporting small and midsize companies developing the latest innovations in blockchain, augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), big data, Internet of Things (IoT), workforce management (WFM), data analytics, and extended reality (XR). While River Capital primarily focuses on passive investments, RCG Ventures will deploy an active investment strategy, providing management resources, infrastructure, access to its network, and hands-on strategic guidance from its team of industry leaders. The firm’s unique approach allows it to navigate today’s volatile markets while consistently bringing turnkey solutions to market. “Our vision is to make opportunistic investments in early-stage companies to which we can add significant value beyond investment capital,” said River Capital Group Holdings Chairman of the Board, Mario Monello. “For partners, our expansive network will open doors that accelerate business development on an unprecedented scale.” RCG Ventures blankets its partners, such as Proviniti, Flex Employment Services, Pathways Personnel, NSS, and HCM Staffing, with talent and expertise across all disciplines required to build world-class businesses. The level at which the firm supports its portfolio companies will ensure access to every possible resource needed to evolve from a startup with an idea to an industry leading, scalable, and highly profitable business. Of note, is that each member of RCG Ventures’ leadership team has helped build, grow, and successfully exit various entities. This access to guidance and strategic counsel through each phase of maturation is critical to achieving hyper-growth and scale. RCG Ventures will be led by Managing Partner, Jeff Kaplan, a successful CEO, entrepreneur, and investor. Kaplan will execute RCG Ventures’ investment theses: the convergence and application of blockchain, XR, AI, IoT, WFM, big data, and analytics. “We’ve assembled an elite, high-growth team of technology, design, engineering, capital markets, sales, and marketing experts whose singular focus is on helping our partners succeed,” said Jeff Kaplan. Once reluctant to embrace new technologies, organizations in all markets now have an appetite for creative applications of emerging technologies. To understand the unique dynamics of today’s market, one only needs to look at the phenomenal growth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in blockchain. Sales volumes NFTs hit $10.7 billion in the third quarter of 2021, an 8x increase from the previous quarter. Augmented reality is being used in retail, real estate, and education. In healthcare alone, researchers forecast that the augmented reality market will reach $4.15 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 30.8%. “What’s most exciting is that we’ve only scratched the surface in terms of potential use-cases and the competitive advantages AI, blockchain, and AR can deliver,” noted Kaplan. ABOUT RIVER CAPITAL GROUP HOLDINGS Founded in 2013, River Capital Group Holdings (RCGH) is a leading family investment office headquartered in Manhattan, NY. In addition to funding, River Capital Group also offers strategic counsel, management resources, and access to its expansive network of capital markets, finance, and institutional investment professionals, without requiring partner companies to cede operational control. River Capital Group makes opportunistic investments in growth companies with investments ranging from five hundred thousand to $50 million. Specifically, RCGH identifies forward-thinking companies for which its capital, financial expertise, and relationships would add both significant quantitative and qualitative value. River Capital Group Holdings is industry agnostic with a track record of backing and supporting companies that deliver above average returns and exceed industry expectations. Invested capital is only that of River Capital Group Holdings’ principals. For additional information, please visit www.rcgh.com. ABOUT RCG VENTURES RCG Ventures (RCGV) is a wholly owned subsidiary of River Capital Group Holdings (River Capital), a leading family investment office. RCGV represents an active investment strategy that combines access to capital with management resources, infrastructure, an expansive global business network, and hands-on strategic guidance from an elite, tenured team of business, financial, marketing, operations, and capital markets leaders. Our target partners develop breakthrough innovations in blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), big data, workforce services, Internet of Things (IoT), data analytics, and extended reality (XR). For additional information, please visit www.RCGV.com. Contact Details JMRConnect: Shaping Influence® PR Mostafa Razzak +1 202-904-2048 m.razzak@jmrconnect.net

October 28, 2021 08:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

British cyber security startup Risk Ledger secures £2.1m funding as supply chains hit the headlines

Risk Ledger

British cyber security company Risk Ledger has today raised £2.1 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by Finnish VC Lifeline Ventures with participation from Seedcamp, firstminute Capital, Episode 1 and Village Global. This news comes hot on the heels of a flurry of new customers including NHS Test and Trace, wealth management giant Quilter, and tech unicorn Snyk. The Risk Ledger platform is a first of a kind global network of connected organisations, all working together to defend as one against cyber attacks. This game changing approach makes the platform ideal for almost any organisation trying to identify, measure and mitigate supply chain risks regardless of industry. Supply chain cyber breaches often result in personal data such as payment details, addresses and medical records being accessed by unauthorised third parties. Major supply chain cyber security breaches in 2021 at Accellion, Solarwinds and Microsoft have put the challenge of defending against supply chain breaches at the top of the agenda for every large organisation globally. Haydn Brooks, founder and CEO at Risk Ledge r commented: “The past 18 months have been a period of rapid growth in the company. We grew our client base and our user numbers have sky-rocketed despite the significant economic disruption caused by the pandemic. We have expanded the product into non-cyber security factors, including ESG and financial supply chain risks. Testament to the wider scope of the platform, we are now engaging procurement leaders in companies as well as their information security counterparts. This investment will help us grow our team and operations to fully capitalise on the heightened focus on supply chain security driven by all the new regulations and high-profile breaches.” Risk Ledger's client base includes a wide range of organisations including NHS Test & Trace, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, City of London Police, Schroders Personal Wealth and ASOS among others. Recently, the Risk Ledger platform was able to help the NHS Test & Trace team identify complex vulnerabilities in multiple interdependent suppliers that provide key reagents to the organisation. These systemic risks within supply chains often go undiscovered and in this case could have caused weeks of disruption to the UK’s ongoing COVID-19 response in the event of a cybersecurity incident. Petteri Koponen, founding partner at Lifeline Ventures said: “We wanted to be part of Risk Ledger’s growth journey because they have the right product at the right time. With supply chain breaches becoming mainstream and regulators globally mandating better management of the risks, the Risk Ledger platform is in a fantastic position to become the industry agnostic tool of choice and penetrate the market extensively. The potential for the platform to proliferate virally is also unique. Capturing 30% of the UK water market in just over a year shows this possibility which is exciting for us.” Risk Ledger is a rising star of the UK's growing cyber security industry having won competitions run by the UK Government's National Cyber Security Centre, the tech industry body TechUK and most recently a winner in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport’s ‘Most Innovative UK Cyber SME of the Year’ competition. The company is also a member of the UK Government backed LORCA programme (London Office of Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement). About Risk Ledger Risk Ledger is a British company that manages cyber security risks in supply chains. The process of supply chain security risk management ensures third parties who deliver critical services, have access to data, corporate networks, or any other status of business trust, maintain a good base level of cyber security controls to prevent bad actors using the third party as an attack vector. Risk Ledger's client base includes organisations like BAE AI, City of London Police, Telenor, Schroders Personal Wealth and ASOS. Risk Ledger is a rising star of the UK's growing cyber security industry having won competitions run by the UK Government's National Cyber Security Centre, the tech industry body TechUK and most recently a winner in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport’s ‘Most Innovative UK Cyber SME of the Year’ competition. The company is also a member of the UK Government backed LORCA programme (London Office of Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement). Contact Details Risk Ledger Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://riskledger.com/

October 28, 2021 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Cyvatar Named Finalist in Computing Security Excellence Awards 2021

Cyvatar

Cyvatar today announced that it has been chosen as a finalist in Computing’s Security Excellence Awards 2021 for the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Security Solution Award. Computing celebrates the achievements of the IT industry's leading security companies, solutions, products, and personalities that keep every other part of the industry operating. Award categories include product- and project-related recognition, organizational achievements, and accolades for outstanding individual success. Computing selected Cyvatar for its cybersecurity-as-a-service (CSaaS) platform, designed with SMEs in mind. SMEs are increasingly at the mercy of ransomware attacks, phishing scams, and other cyber threats, but unlike larger orgs, most SMEs don’t have the budget or expertise to invest in comprehensive in-house security programs. Moreover, they struggle to show value from the security tools they do buy. Cyvatar CSaaS democratizes cybersecurity, making the best protection accessible and affordable for any SME regardless of budget, even if they have no cybersecurity expertise in-house. Customers can select the membership and pricing that meet their desired business outcomes in seconds; a freemium model ensures they can achieve tangible results fast with no out-of-pocket costs--an industry first. And they can cancel anytime--another industry first. “We don’t throw technology over the wall and expect our customers to figure it out themselves the way many product companies do,” said Corey White, Cyvatar co-founder and chief executive. “We deliver all three pillars of cybersecurity—the teams, technology solutions, and best practices—to SMEs that would not otherwise be able to implement them. Our subscription model ensures they don’t end up buying solutions they can’t use or don’t need, and our platform lets them see at a glance what’s going on in their environment to give them the best cyber prevention available.” Cyvatar offers its proprietary ICARM™ (install, configure, assess, remediate, maintain) methodology to deliver smarter, more efficient solutions, allowing SMEs to achieve security compliance and cyber-attack prevention faster and more effectively. ICARM ensures SMEs won’t get crushed under the weight of too many products, and guaranteed outcomes mean they get maximum value from their technology spend. Choose the Cyvatar membership with the best outcomes for your business today. About Cyvatar Cyvatar is committed to effortless cybersecurity for everyone. As the industry’s first subscription-based, cybersecurity-as-a-service (CSaaS) company, it’s our mission to transform the way the security industry builds, sells, and supports cyber solutions. We empower our members to achieve successful outcomes by providing expert practitioners, market-leading technologies, and proven best practices to guarantee business results. Our approach is rooted in a proprietary ICARM (installation, configuration, assessment, remediation, maintenance) methodology that delivers measurable security solutions for superior compliance and cyber-attack prevention, all bundled into a fixed monthly subscription that members can cancel anytime. Cyvatar is headquartered in Irvine, California, with locations around the world. Begin your journey to security confidence at cyvatar.ai and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. Contact Details Cyvatar Dan Chmielewski +1 949-231-2963 dchm@madisonalexanderpr.com Company Website https://cyvatar.ai/

October 28, 2021 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Kaskada Brings New Method of Time Travel to Feature Engineering

Kaskada

Kaskada today announced the broad availability of the first-ever feature engine with time travel. The company’s approach to this methodology is vastly different from competitors, and current customers are already benefiting from improved data models, reduced risk of leakage, and significant time savings. “The foundation of Kaskada was built on the intention to have a positive impact on the data science community, and our feature engine with time travel will do just that,” said Kaskada CEO Davor Bonaci. “This is the tool many of us in the industry have been dreaming about.” For those in the data science field, it’s not uncommon for it to take several months to collect data and have it be outdated or even incorrect by the time it’s ready for business application. Kaskada solves this problem by letting you compute what you need directly from event-based data for feature engineering, meaning significant time and money savings for any kind of business. This method also won’t delay business value because it reveals accurate data results from the very beginning. “Where it used to take months just to get a single machine learning model in place, Kaskada makes it possible for data scientists to skip the guesswork and travel back in time to instantly understand and compute features relevant to a specific, current business problem,” explained Dr. Charna Parkey, Kaskada’s VP of Product. “It not only removes a huge point of friction, but it can have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line.” Kaskada’s feature engine with time travel is available now. To learn more and try it out, please go to https://kaskada.com/ and sign up today. About Kaskada: Kaskada is an innovative, Seattle-based, machine learning company that is leveling up the data science and machine learning industries. We are the company that first solved temporal streaming joins, enabling running predictive models from event-based data. Using Kaskada enables customers to get more value from event-based data. Now, users can build models that weren't previously possible, that will actually work once put in production–without leakage. Contact Details Forrest Carman +1 206-859-3118 press@kaskada.com Company Website https://kaskada.com/

October 27, 2021 09:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time

PRESS RELEASE | SullivanCotter Welcomes Cathy Loose to Lead Employee Workforce Practice

SullivanCotter

SullivanCotter, the nation’s leading independent consulting firm in the assessment and development of total rewards programs, workforce solutions, and technology and data products for the health care industry and not-for-profit sector, is pleased to announce the addition of Cathy Loose as a Managing Principal and Practice Leader of the Employee Workforce Practice. For over 25 years, Cathy has advised employers in health care, higher education and global markets on all areas of broad-based, workforce compensation. She has also served as compensation consultant to companies in the biotech, pharma, hi-tech and life science industries. Having lived and consulted in various regions around the world, including Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and North America, Cathy brings innovation to traditional total rewards and workforce planning initiatives, as well as to priorities driving diversity, equity and inclusion. “While we tend to think of health care as a U.S.-based industry, the world’s influence and international collaboration is increasing even in health care, challenging us to help our clients think differently about how they appeal to and reward today’s workforce,” said Ted Chien, President and Chief Executive Officer, SullivanCotter. “Cathy’s global experience brings a fresh perspective to our work and helps our clients remain agile during times of change like we have been seeing this past decade, and more specifically this past 18-24 months.” Cathy advises executive teams in developing enterprise-wide rewards philosophies, career architecture and compensation frameworks to align employee pay and incentives with their organization’s mission and key strategies. In addition, she helps redesign workforce rewards to drive and enable enterprise growth, organization realignments, business consolidations and merger and acquisition transactions. Before joining SullivanCotter, Cathy held leadership positions around the world at several large global consulting firms. She led a variety of practices including global mobility, broad-based compensation, total rewards and human capital solutions. She is a frequent speaker at national conferences on global, broad-based compensation and talent mobility, and she holds the designation of SHRM-Senior Certified Professional (SCP). Cathy is fluent in English, French and Vietnamese and proficient in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. About SullivanCotter SullivanCotter partners with health care and other not-for-profit organizations to understand what drives performance and improve outcomes through the development and implementation of integrated workforce strategies. Using our time-tested methodologies and industry-leading research and information, we provide data-driven insights, expertise, data and technology products to help organizations align business strategy and performance objectives – enabling our clients to deliver on their mission, vision and values. Contact Details Becky Lorentz +1 314-414-3719 beckylorentz@sullivancotter.com Company Website https://sullivancotter.com

October 27, 2021 10:23 AM Central Daylight Time

Symphony partners with Unqork to solve capital markets business challenges

Symphony Communication Services

Symphony- the leading markets’ infrastructure and technology platform - is partnering with Unqork, the leading enterprise no-code platform, to solve capital markets business challenges, by digitizing the industry’s core processes while streamlining secure collaboration and improving auditability. Capital markets operations processes are highly manual, require ad-hoc collaboration and offer inconsistent transparency. Some of the current challenges in this space include client onboarding, account servicing as well as and other middle and back-office trading operations tasks. Through this partnership, Symphony and Unqork will focus on the digitization of critical core processes such as client onboarding, private assets deal lifecycle, client servicing, and trade exceptions management. The Symphony platform augments workflow through its unique secure and compliant collaboration, adding transparency through real time notifications to front, middle and back office participants on the buyside, sellside and custodians. Unqork’s no-code platform enables the digitization of the missing layers of these workflows that are typically siloed, with a significantly faster time to market than traditional development methods that require coding. The combination of both platforms will provide an innovative and effective market solution. Symphony’s head of operations workflows Kate Chatzopoulos said: “We’re excited to partner with no-code platform Unqork to solve urgent industry challenges. Both companies are committed to deliver best in class solutions and integrations that will allow financial institutions to do business more efficiently.” “Our partnership with Symphony is a key part of Unqork’s commitment to support the capital market industry’s drive for faster transactions at scale,” said Rabih Ramadi, head of financial services and insurance at Unqork. “We are looking forward to working closely with Symphony to help our customers digitize their workflows and communications across internal teams, clients and vendors.” In its commitment to deliver networked market infrastructure, Symphony CEO Brad Levy has previously shared that the company would buy, partner with, or acquire strategic assets for itself and the industry. On June 24, Symphony announced it had acquired the trader voice and electronic communication company Cloud9 Technologies while on August 3, the company announced the acquisition of counterparty mapping platform StreetLinx. In the last year, Symphony has also established partnerships with Genesis Global, AccessFintech, and Saphyre. About Symphony Symphony is the most secure and compliant markets’ infrastructure and technology platform, where solutions are built or integrated to standardize, automate and innovate financial services workflows. It is a vibrant community of over half a million financial professionals with a trusted directory and serves over 1000 institutions. Symphony is powering over 2,000 community built applications and bots. For more information, visit www.symphony.com. About Unqork Unqork is the industry pioneer no-code enterprise application platform that helps large companies build, deploy, and manage complex applications without writing a single line of code. Organizations like Goldman Sachs, Liberty Mutual, the Cities of New York, Chicago and Washington, DC and Maimonides Medical Center are using Unqork's drag-and-drop interface to build enterprise applications faster, with higher quality, and lower costs than conventional approaches. To learn more, please visit: https://www.unqork.com. Contact Details Symphony Communication Services Odette Maher +44 7747 420807 odette.maher@symphony.com Unqork Dana Davis +1 973-797-9387 comms@unqork.com Company Website https://symphony.com/

October 27, 2021 10:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Mirriad Taps Music Industry Veterans to Diversify Music Alliance Brand Partnerships

Mirriad

Mirriad, the leading in-content advertising company that uses AI-powered technology for brands including Conde Nast, Universal and Johnson & Johnson, today announced two new strategic hires: Martin Moor as Vice President and Head of Music & Brand Partnerships and James Goodhall as Head of Music Sales EMEA. Moor and Goodhall join Mirriad following the 2020 launch of Mirriad’s Music Alliance, a coalition dedicated to merging the marketing and music industries to offer brands, artists, and fans creative and financial opportunities through seamlessly placing brands’ content into music videos and media. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to have such creative and forward-thinking minds such as Martin and James to join us as we expand our Music Alliance initiatives,” said Stephan Beringer, Chief Executive Officer, Mirriad. “As the advertising industry continues to evolve with brands looking for authentic ways to engage with their consumers, we at Mirriad are continually working to present impactful and non-disruptive in-content advertising opportunities that drive brand recognition. These additions to our team will have a tremendous impact on our future success as a company.” As the new Vice President and Head of Music & Brand Partnerships at Mirriad, Moor is responsible for music brand partnership growth within the Americas. Moor began his career at Penalty Records and served as the label’s first Director of Artists and Repertoire (A&R), launching the careers of N.O.R.E, David Banner and to working with multi-platinum artists and Grammy award-winning producers such as Pharrell Williams, Swizz Beats and Kanye West. Moor also led teams at Sony Music Entertainment, serving as Senior Director of A&R Executive for Epic Records. He has worked with leading global brands such as Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa, Red Bull, Airbnb and Microsoft. Based in New York City, Moor will report to Mark Melvin, EVP, Sales & Brand Partnerships, US, Mirriad. Goodhall joins Mirriad as Head of Music Sales in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and is responsible for building out Mirriad’s recently developed Music Alliance program and revenue stream across the region - primarily for the UK, France and Germany. Goodhall brings 20 years of music industry experience in streaming, VOD, marketing, brand partnerships, distribution, A&R and live events to his new role. As Head of Music Sales, Goodhall will closely work with the insights and marketing teams to use evidence-based research to demonstrate the power of in-video advertising to brands. Goodhall’s career began at Amato Distribution where he ran the UK Sales division, moving on to work in successful A&R roles at Sony Music UK and Universal Music. He then worked in commercial positions at EMI Music UK and Warner Music UK, where he managed high-profile music clients Spotify, Deezer, Napster, YouTube and Vevo during his time and launched artist campaigns for the likes of Coldplay, Tinie Tempah, Dua Lipa, Jason Derulo, Gorillaz, David Guetta, Annie-Marie, and helped deliver UK chart history for Ed Sheeran, Jess Glynne, Stormzy and Emeli Sande. Goodhall has also worked with leading brands Google Play, Microsoft, Vodafone and O2. Based in London, he will report to Miles Lewis, CRO, Mirriad. “I’m especially excited to join forces with Mirriad because of the company’s focus on technology innovation and amplifying the multicultural marketplace through the Music Alliance,” said Goodhall. “I’m looking forward to working alongside empowered minority-owned music labels and artists and offering an entirely new way for brands to authentically connect with audiences in a very natural way.” “Mirriad’s exceptional work speaks for itself and I can’t wait to begin my journey centered on music and creativity,” said Moor. “The unique approach of Mirriad's tech-powered fusion of data, AI, cultural reach and limitless creativity opens up a world of possibilities for brands and musicians.” Mirriad’s new Music Alliance program partners with global leading music labels and artists to connect the creatives to Mirriad’s AI-powered tech to find the most relevant context for brands and seamlessly integrate advertisements in relevant content like music videos, which reaches audiences without disrupting or bombarding. Mirriad’s Music Alliance program already worked with placing Tecate (Heineken) in Giovanny Ayala’s music videos and Bushmills into Viceland web series content. For more information about Mirriad, please visit https://www.mirriad.com/ About Mirriad Mirriad's award-winning solution unleashes new revenue for content producers and distributors by creating new advertising inventory in content. Our patented, AI and computer vision technology dynamically inserts products and innovative signage formats after content is produced. Mirriad's market-first solution seamlessly integrates with existing subscription and advertising models, and dramatically improves the viewer experience by limiting commercial interruptions. Mirriad currently operates in the US, Europe and China. Contact Details Kite Hill Shania Roper +1 843-693-7161 shania@kitehillpr.com Company Website https://www.mirriad.com/

October 27, 2021 09:08 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Velocity Global adds DJ Matt Cassidy as Dance Floor Director

Velocity Global

Cassidy responsible for vibe creation for growing global team Cassidy to play company’s annual party this week in his hometown of Denver Cassidy featured in lineup for Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks in January Velocity Global officially named DJ Matt Cassidy as Dance Floor Director as the company makes final preparations for its annual party this week. Cassidy is responsible for vibe creation for the company’s growing global team of more than 400 people across six continents. He reports to Sam Warren, recently promoted to Chief Fun Officer, or CFUNO. “We’re thrilled to officially welcome Matt to the Velocity Global family. Matt’s contributions to Velocity Global’s Fun department over the past three years established him as an instrumental member of the team,” said Warren. “Matt embodies what the company does every day — serves up smiles and delivers unforgettable experiences.” Cassidy is a native of Denver which also serves as corporate headquarters for Velocity Global, a remote-first company. Cassidy shares the company’s passion for global influence, often mixing international beats into his repertoire. This week, Velocity Global welcomes team members from around the globe to Denver for an event to celebrate its employees and their contributions to the company's growth, including two acquisitions this year. The event will follow strict protocols including vaccination requirements and COVID-19 testing. “The dance floor has grown immensely over the past three years as the company takes off,” said Cassidy. “I’m honored to officially be part of the family and to continue to focus on how to have fun amidst hard work and tremendous success.” DJ Matt Cassidy will open for global DJ and record producer, Diplo, at the 10th annual Icelantic's Winter on the Rocks on January 28, 2022, at Red Rocks Amphitheater. Velocity Global is a presenting sponsor of the upcoming event that Cassidy has played for the last seven years. Stream music from DJ Matt Cassidy here. About Velocity Global Velocity Global accelerates the future of work beyond borders. Its global work platform simplifies the employer and employee experience to employ any talent anywhere with just a click through its proprietary cloud-based workforce management technology, backed by personalized expertise and unmatched global scale. As the largest global Employer of Record (also known as International PEO) in 185 countries and all 50 United States, more than 1,000 brands rely on Velocity Global to build global teams without the cost or complexity of setting up foreign legal entities or state registrations. The company offers additional services including Independent Contractor Compliance to assess a workforce, and Agent of Record (AoR) to streamline payments to contractors. Velocity Global was named a “Leader” in Global Employer of Record services by prominent analyst firm NelsonHall. Founded in 2014, the company has hundreds of employees across six continents. For more information visit velocityglobal.com. Contact Details John Hall +1 720-650-4348 news@velocityglobal.com Company Website https://velocityglobal.com/

October 27, 2021 07:01 AM Mountain Daylight Time

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Making content king again: Instoried secures $8M to expand AI-powered platform that guarantees enhanced content performance and ROI

Instoried

Instoried, the only AI-powered pre-publication sentiment analysis tool that enhances content performance in real-time has raised $8M in funding from Pritt Investment Partners and 9Unicorns with participation from Mumbai Angels, Venture Catalysts Angel Fund and SOSV. Instoried turns traditional content performance tracking software on its head, delivering real-time sentiment analysis at the point of content creation to ensure performance ahead of publication. The startup’s AI engine dynamically determines the emotional engagement quotient of any type of written content and then makes smart recommendations to help content writers guarantee that their readers will be emotionally engaged. This enhanced emotional engagement enables businesses, enterprises and freelancers to dramatically improve content ROI through lead generation, brand engagement and product adoption. Instoried has seen customers increase lead generation 3-fold and double content ROI within 6 months of using the tool. Making use of complex Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms developed in-house, Instoried has tagged millions of lines of text with emotion and tone across all types of genres including business, health, politics and social media. The startup’s team of in-house linguists then annotate the text for context and semantics, providing the essential human understanding of tone from which their proprietary AI can learn. In simple terms, the tool can analyse content of any type or length to determine whether it is ‘any good’ insofar as it will achieve the goals of the content writer. Where content needs improvement to achieve these goals, Instoried provides real-time instructions for enhancing the copy to achieve optimal results. The Instoried SaaS platform delivers both content evaluation and content generation using OpenAI’s GPT-3. Some of the features include short-form content generation, emotional quotient analysis, grammar and plagiarism checking, headline analysis, tonality review and panel testing. Instoried has built web apps and APIs to help integrate the tool onto any licence-based platform. Instoried was founded in 2019 by Sharmin Ali. Sutanshu Raj joined as CTO and was later co-opted as a co-founder. Sharmin is both a published author and seasoned content creator having founded other companies in the media industry during her career. This insider insight inspired her mission to help businesses who have adopted content as a key driver in their marketing plan to stop “flying blind” when it comes to predicting content success. As a creative process, content writing is largely based on intuition which does not allow for a data-driven approach to audience engagement and content performance. Even existing software that can measure post-publication engagement, cannot tell businesses why their content is underperforming. So Sharmin joined forces with Sutanshu and built a team with rich tech, product, marketing and linguistic expertise to develop a tool that gauges and predicts content performance while creating it. Sharmin Ali, Founder & CEO, Instoried, commented: “With all brands doubling down on ecommerce and the world going virtual, there has never been a more important time for businesses to make their written content count and work hard. Over the past 12 months we have increased revenue 50x. We are now looking at scaling operations in the US. This fundraise will help us go to market, build a strong team in the US and add more product offerings to our existing portfolio. We are thrilled to have Pritt Investment Partners on board this content tech journey.” On investing in Instoried Scott Tripp, Director at Pritt Investment Partners said: “Pritt Investment Partners has been focused intently on investing in companies that have a strong product, management team, market in which to grow, and a solid plan for growth and favorable returns in the future. We believe we have found this in Instoried and Sharmin Ali. Instoried has successfully developed a SaaS based deep-tech platform that helps enterprises and individuals create emotionally engaging content, thereby improving return on investment (ROI) for marketing efforts and campaigns. As the digital marketing industry continues to grow we believe Instoried is well positioned with their product to take advantage of this opportunity and quickly penetrate the market. We are excited and proud to be a lead investor in the company and look forward to seeing the continued rapid growth of the company. This is only the beginning. Well done Sharmin and team!” “Instoried with its deep-tech tools have ensured that it analyses content so that companies can reach out to their target audience effectively and on time. We are optimistic about Instoried’s growth in the global content tech market that is likely to touch $400 billion in the next two years. Sharmin and her team are well equipped to emerge as leaders in this segment and we are excited to be a part of their growth story” added Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Director, 9Unicorns who have also invested in Instoried. Sharmin Ali added: “Instoried will enable brands, enterprises and freelancers to create more meaningful content in less time that resonates with their target audience. Our aim is to create a robust and all-inclusive content tool that can be the complete solution for content writers of all kinds. We want to make empathetic communication the next revolution in content marketing”. Instoried has previously raised $2M from investors including SOSV, Artesian Investments, Mumbai Angels, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Rockstud Capital. Instoried has received constant support from Censie Capital investment banking partners in their fundraising journey. About Instoried Instoried helps enterprises and individuals create emotionally engaging content which is also commercially rewarding. The platform helps content writers, in the SME category, e-commerce, FMCG, and other verticals to optimize emotions and generate emotive copy for marketing content. Instoried uses a data-driven approach using their proprietary AI driven technology to make real time analysis and suggestions to enhance content to increase engagement and interest for the reader. Instoried uses the principles of neuromarketing to offer smart recommendations to increase or decrease a particular emotion in the content. Instoried has won several awards including Best Product and Innovation (The Economic Times), Best AI Startup (IIT Kanpur) and Best Woman Driven Startup (JSS). Contact Details Instoried Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com

October 27, 2021 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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