• Kompyte

  Led · Equity · Oct 2015

  Kompyte builds a competitive intelligence platform that automates competitive research and reporting, enabling customers to monitor competitors in real time and adjust strategy. Its software organizes intelligence in a centralized, CRM‑like platform to help product, marketing and sales teams respond faster to market changes. The company says this creates a more sustainable competitive advantage by extracting insights from fast-changing market data. Kompyte has raised $3 million from Caixa Capital Risc, Adara Ventures and Swanlaab Venture Factory, alongside other existing investors. Founded in Barcelona and taking root in San Francisco after graduating from 500 Startups in 2017, Kompyte is expanding operations with a third office in Austin. Austin will be the base for the go-to-market team while product and engineering remain in Barcelona, and leadership emphasizes a multicultural, agile development approach to support customers. Kompyte offers an automated competitive-intelligence SaaS that notifies users about important updates and modifications to competitors' digital strategies. The company serves a client base in North America that includes multiple Fortune 500 companies and multinationals. Kompyte completed the 500 Startups accelerator and will maintain a presence in Silicon Valley as it pushes for rapid growth in the U.S. The startup announced it closed a funding round with Adara Ventures and Gaesco Venturcap and had previously secured backing from New York’s Rose Tech Ventures in 2015. Founded in Barcelona in 2014, the team plans product iteration and expansion, including launching Kompyte 3 at Mobile World Congress 2017. The financing and accelerator support position Kompyte to scale its marketing-automation offering in enterprise markets. Kompyte offers real-time online competitive-intelligence software that enables companies to analyze their competitors. The company was founded about a year before this article and is based in Barcelona; it reports operating fully and released a new version with added functionalities in the prior six months. Kompyte says its largest customer base is in the United States, which has become its main market. It has signed commercial agreements with Gust (New York) and Jahia (Paris) to give companies linked to those platforms direct access to Kompyte resources. The company will use the newly raised funds to expand internationally by establishing operations in the United States. To date Kompyte has raised nearly €500,000, including the roughly €400,000 just closed.

• Magnify.net

  Participated · Series A · Feb 2008

  Magnify offers publishers tools to curate videos using editorial controls (tagging, ordering, profiling) and to aggregate and host content pulled from sources like YouTube. The product emphasizes human editorial control combined with algorithmic automation and can integrate with existing video platforms such as Brightcove. The company shifted from enterprise-only customers to serve any content publisher and counts customers including New York Magazine, Vibe.com, USAFootball.com, the Lincoln Center, and TEDx. Magnify averaged about 7 million video views per month across its customers and expects to be profitable by the second quarter. The startup will use the new funding to invest in its technical team and sales efforts. Rosenbaum founded the company in 2006 and the business has pivoted twice since its founding. Magnify.net is a video sharing site that lets users collect and share videos from across the web as well as upload their own. The platform aggregates videos and aims to help publishers monetize niche video content through its Ad Share ad network. The company is just over a year old and is based in New York. It claims over three million visitors a month and more than 30,000 content publishers. Magnify.net raised $1 million to fund continued growth, specifically to expand customer acquisition efforts and increase staffing for Ad Share. During the writer’s strike the company reported a 70 percent increase in weekly site videos, which it cited as a sign of growing online viewing demand. Magnify.net builds embeddable, publisher-controlled video channels that aggregate videos from sites like YouTube, Revver, and Yahoo Videos. Publishers can add channels to their sites and allow readers to submit videos directly, via search, or by pasting video URLs. Submitted videos require either admin approval or at least three reviewers and a minimum 5/10 average rating before joining the collection; approved videos can be rated, commented on, tagged, and shared. The platform provides RSS feeds, playlists, widgets and other integration features to keep readers updated and increase engagement. The site is in beta and the article notes usability and performance issues, including slow performance. Magnify.net has raised $1.2 million in seed financing from New York Angels and NextStage Capital and reports 3,500 channels created to date; founders include Steve Rosenbaum, Simon Cavalletto, and Scott Milener.

No current team members are available.