• VenueBook

  Participated · Seed · Jul 2014

  VenueBook is an online, cloud-based event management platform that lets venues and event planners generate proposals, manage and book events in one program. Led by founder and CEO Kelsey Recht, the company was founded in 2010 and is based in New York City. Since inception it has secured partnerships with New York venues including Altamarea Group, The Ace Hotel locations (April Bloomfield), Interstate Hotels, EMM Group and Little Wisco restaurant group. On July 24, 2014 VenueBook closed more than $2M in seed funding. Backers included Joanne Wilson of Gotham Gal Ventures, 2BF Global Ventures, Cayuga Ventures, MI Ventures, Kindler Capital and Victoria Grace. The company intends to use the funds to expand its sales team, add marketing and developer resources, increase customer support functions and further mobile application development.

• Qloo

  Participated · Seed · Nov 2013

  Qloo operates Taste AI, an AI-powered intelligence engine built on a privacy-centric catalog of more than half a billion lifestyle entities and a consumer behavior and sentiment database containing over 10 trillion unique signals. Its proprietary models identify trillions of connections in milliseconds to help businesses predict preferences and personalize customer experiences without using personally identifiable information. Qloo provides access via a flexible API and will soon offer a no-code self-service interface to broaden access to its recommendations. The platform serves multinational customers including Netflix, Starbucks, Universal Music Group, PepsiCo, JCDecaux, Michelin and Ticketmaster. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New York City, Qloo powers use cases from personalized recommendations to inputs for large language models and advanced audience intelligence. The company plans to use the investment to expand into new markets, launch its self-service insights platform, grow its team, and acquire novel data sources and technologies to enhance Taste AI. Qloo operates an AI-powered insights engine that identifies connections across cultural and entertainment domains, claiming contextualized personalization for over 575 million entities worldwide. The platform surfaces correlation data that lets customers apply tastes in one category (for example TV preferences) to recommendations in another (for example game buying or travel). Qloo sells access to its models via a monthly subscription API, with contracts that Elias says start in the "five figures," and counts notable customers including Starbucks, Hershey’s, Michelin, Netflix, PepsiCo, Samsung, The New York Mets, BuzzFeed and Ticketmaster. The company says it is approaching profitability. Qloo plans to build a self-service research tool for marketers and SMBs and is introducing a "multi-person recommendation AI" that can match profiles, with envisioned uses such as dating apps. With the new capital it intends to expand its ~50-person team to over 100 by year-end and to pursue opportunistic M&A (it previously acquired TasteDive in 2019). Qloo offers an AI-driven recommendation API that correlates over 575 million “primary entities” (movies, books, restaurants, songs, etc.) to generate taste predictions and affinities for enterprise clients. The platform powers enterprise use cases — from sales and conversion lift to retail location selection — and integrates with Snowflake, Tableau and other data platforms. Qloo acquired social recommendation app TasteDive in 2019 and supplies insights to clients including PepsiCo and Rocket Entertainment. The company says it does not use personally identifiable information, keeps requests ad hoc, and is compliant with GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act. Qloo runs a roughly 30-person team and plans to grow headcount by over 30% with the new funding; it reports all-time highs in revenue and API utilization and says it is nearing profitability. The Series B proceeds will fund a new “lite” visual subscription product for less-technical users, additional product development and expanded sales channels. Qloo uses publicly available and open-source data to map patterns in consumer taste across categories such as music, film, TV, books, podcasts, consumer products, fashion, dining and travel. The company has built a cultural recommendation app that consumers can download, but it is currently focused on selling its data and insights to other businesses. Qloo says it has already mapped 750 million correlations across tastes and interests. Its data is marketed to help clients — for example, enabling marketers to identify shared interests among fans of competing sports teams and tailor advertising accordingly. Investors including Elton John have highlighted the platform’s potential for brand partnerships and entertainment-industry use cases. Financially, Qloo recently raised additional funding and previously closed a $4.5M round last year. Qloo operates a cultural recommendation engine that combs proprietary and open-source data to learn consumer preferences and correlations across eight major categories: music, film, television, dining, nightlife, fashion, books and travel. It offers an API for developers and a standalone consumer app (primarily as a showcase) to power "if you like this, try that" features and personalized recommendations. Qloo generates revenue by selling business intelligence to marketers and has been used by hotels, e-commerce businesses, and media and entertainment companies. Corporate applications cited include digital concierge services for hotels, product discovery for e-commerce, and guidance on location, casting and soundtracks for media companies. The company says it intends to expand further into hotels and resorts, restaurants, media and entertainment, and connected-car integrations for navigation and entertainment systems. After the Series A, Qloo has $7.5 million in total capital raised and plans to use the new funding to increase the size and depth of its database and win new corporate clients.

No current team members are available.