Participated · Equity · Nov 2012

Veenome provides ad networks with a platform to monitor and audit publishers and gives publishers tools to understand their own video content. The company offers a data-as-a-service product that translates video into machine-readable data. Its core API automatically identifies visual content in video and returns tags, keywords, categories and other metadata. The output is designed to increase ROI for video platforms, publishers and advertising networks. Led by CEO Kevin Lenane and based in Arlington, VA, Veenome intends to use new funds to continue expanding its business and tech development headcount. The company has raised $2M to date. Veenome analyzes video content to translate it into machine-readable, actionable data for ad targeting, analytics and SEO. Its technology divides videos into IAB-based categories, identifies objectionable or copyrighted content, and tags brands, products and faces. That data enables smarter ad targeting and campaign analytics; the company says it more than doubles CPM revenue for its customers. Veenome counts BrightRoll, Adtheorent and Videofy.me among its customers and has announced a partnership with BrightRoll. The startup has shifted strategy from selling to publishers toward working with video ad networks to achieve wider reach, according to CEO Kevin Lenane. Financially, Veenome announced $600,000 in new funding, bringing total disclosed funding to $1.1 million. Veenome builds proprietary automated video-recognition technology that scans video clips for products, brands and objects and tags and indexes them. Once identified, items can be linked to associated content such as e-commerce storefronts or social media to enable in-video purchases. The company differentiates itself by automatically crawling sites and overlaying ads via a plugin rather than requiring manual tagging, with plugins planned for major blog platforms (WordPress, Drupal) and some custom channels. Veenome is running a beta test with participants that include major global publishers and video providers. It says the new funding will be used to enhance its recognition algorithms and APIs for early customers. The business model resembles AdWords: advertisers bid on tags and revenue is split 70% to publishers, 25% to Veenome, and 5% to video creators. Founded by CEO Kevin Lenane and CTO David Geller, the founders bring prior product and CEO experience.

Participated · Equity · Sep 2012

Covacsis builds software to track machinery and productivity in real time, providing assessment and dissemination of information to help merchants save money and improve efficiency. The company was founded in 2009 and incubated at IIT Bombay’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE); founder Tarun Mishra was previously COO at Mahindra Logisoft Business Solutions. Its solution combines software and analytics and has won notable clients including Sun Pharma, Ipca Labs, Cipla, Godrej Industries, Tata Chemicals, Welspun, Raymond Limited and Ruby Mills. Covacsis was bootstrapped by Mishra and had started garnering significant revenue by the time outside investors came in. Blume Ventures characterized the company as “very close to being an enterprise software company” and cited its idea and market acceptability as reasons to invest.

Participated · Series A · Apr 2012

United Mobile Apps is an India-based 4G technology company that provides Connection Management, Device Management and Data Synchronization platforms to enable silicon vendors, device manufacturers and operators to deliver a connected experience to end users. The company is led by co-founder Sriram V Iyer and Arun Samudrala. It completed a $1M Series A financing and intends to use the proceeds to expand engineering, marketing/sales and R&D activities. United Mobile Apps has already expanded its marketing and sales efforts to Japan and is working on key partnerships in that region. The product focus is on enabling connectivity across devices and ecosystems through its platform offerings. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article.