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Mobile-Focused Ad Tech Startup Run Raises $1.5M From Verizon Ventures
Run, which offers ad-buying tools and analytics, is announcing that it has raised $1.5 million in funding from Verizon’s strategic investment arm Verizon Ventures.
Co-founder and COO Dan Schwartz said that demand-side platforms (which are used by advertisers to buy ads across multiple ad exchanges and data sources) have mostly taken two approaches when it comes to mobile. First, there are the traditional DSPs that started on desktop and are now looking at mobile. Second, there are startups focused on mobile exclusively. He described Run, on the other hand, as part of “the first crop of ad tech 2.0 companies” and one that’s taking a “mobile-first approach” to ad buying while still running campaigns that across devices.
Schwartz’s co-founder and CEO Seth Hittman added that the kind of programmatic ad-buying that Run specializes in provides a big opportunity for mobile: “It’s no secret that there’s a whole lot of unsold inventory.”
The company was actually founded back in 2010, and this is its first outside investment. Schwartz said that’s because Run had a product and revenue pretty quickly — also, he and Hittman didn’t pay themselves for the first 20 months.
Their approach has evolved. At first Run was focused purely on ad buying, but over time it added analytics and tracking — combined with its buying tools, Hittman said Run can “connect all those dots” for advertisers.
One feature that Hittman and Schwartz highlighted in our conversation is their ability to track users without cookies (which is pretty much a necessity if you want to track users on mobile). They said they hope to help build industry-wide standards around cookie-less tracking, for example through their work with the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
By the way, the company’s ad-buying product is called Run DSP, a name that Hittman is pretty proud of, perhaps justifiably.
Redfin Now Lets Sellers Test The Price Of Their Homes Before They Hit The Market
With the real-estate market getting more competitive again, finding the right price point when you are selling a home is getting even more important if you don’t want to leave a good chunk of money on the table. Traditionally, finding that price point has been a question of looking at recently sold houses and a good bit of divination from your real-estate agent.
In a fast-moving market, however, comps may not tell you the whole story. To help homeowners find the right price, the “technology-powered real-estate brokerage” Redfin today launched a new tool that allows potential sellers to get feedback on their price before putting their home on the market.
Redfin’s new Price Whisperer tool allows sellers to get feedback on a price and demand from up to 250 active buyers in their area. The homeowners simply provide their local Redfin agent with their desired price and home address, so there is definitely a lead-generation aspect for Redfin to this as well. The agent then asks the homeowners for photos of the house and sends out an email to potential buyers, asking if they would pay the price for the house. The exact location of the home remains undisclosed at this point.
After two days, the homeowners get a report that tells them how many people would buy their house at this price and how many potential buyers would want to tour their place.
“Everyone wants to get as high a price as possible for their home, without the risk of a price reduction,” said Bridget Frey, vice president of engineering at Redfin in a canned statement today. “Price Whisperer does what a traditional agent does — asks around about what the market will bear — just with much more precision and scale using technology.”
It’s worth noting that homeowners do not have to list their homes with Redfin to use this service. If they do so, however, the Redfin agent will immediately alert those potential buyers who expressed an interest in the home. In addition, Redfin says, it always recommends that homeowners also list their homes with the Multiple Listing Service to expand the range of potential buyers.
The service is now available in Boston, Chicago, the Los Angeles area, New York, Portland (OR), San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and Washington D.C.
BioBeats Raises Celebrity Seed Funding To Turn Quantified Self Data Into Therapeutic Music
Nadeem Kassam worked in entertainment before founding health-tracking wristwatch maker Basis Science. Now he’s combining the industries with BioBeats, a startup converts your vital signs into custom tailored music to keep you meditating, running or fighting a disease. Today BioBeats announced $650,000 in seed funding from actor Will Smith, music manager Scooter Braun, angel Kevin Colleran, and more.
After eight years in development and $20 million in funding, Basis launched earlier this year to bring a plethora of health sensors to our bodies. Byt just because Kassam started Basis doesn’t mean he’ll favor it in his new venture. BioBeats will be device agnostic, pulling in quantified self health data from any phone, FitBit, FuelBand, Up, or other sensor willing to work with it. These devices are becoming more and more common, so Kassam tells me he asked himself, “What’s next? Once everyone is wearing sensors, how will they change our lives and what types of tech will be necessary?”
He decided it’s time for us to get something inspiring out of all the health info we’re collecting.
The idea behind BioBeats is that people need encouragement to stay engaged with their wellness regimens. So it’s built a platform for collecting and analyzing physiological signs from our wearables. The plan is to work with musicians and other entertainers to create “adaptive media” that responds directly to your health data. So if you’re running and BioBeats detects you need a rest, it can slow down the song. Or if it determines you’re not scared enough in a horror movie, it could amp up the creepy music and shocking scenes to get your adrenaline pumping.
BioBeats has secured the $650,000 seed funding from Smith, Braun, and Colleran, as well as Ken Hertz (entertainment lawyer), Mark Beaven (CEO of artist management company AAM), Damon Wayans (actor), Cantora Records (record label), Justin Boreta (musician), ENIAC Ventures, Zhen Fund, and angel investor Gotham Chopra.
Its first product Pulse came out a few months ago analyzes your heartbeat and plays you music according to what genre will match your activity level. Soon it will release BioMuse, which builds you whole playlists of songs based on your vital signs.
Albumatic Relaunches Photo App To Focus On Albums (Not Location), Shares Details On Its $4.2M Funding
Albumatic launched a new version of its photosharing app today which co-founder Adam Ludwin said is “redesigned and reimagined from the ground up.”
When Albumatic first launched in February, it was focused on the idea of capturing events with friends in the moment. The idea was conveyed in the promotional video that I included with my initial launch coverage, where someone starts photographing a concert in their garage, which attracts a bunch of other friends to come over and take photos too, and others can track the event from afar.
That approach did draw some users, Ludwin said — nearly 100,000 in its first two weeks. That’s when Ludwin and other Albumatic team members headed off to South by Southwest with the idea that this was the absolute perfect event for the app. But through their interactions with users at SXSW, and by just looking at usage in the app, they realized that their ideas were a bit off.
Most people, Ludwin said, were using Albumatic less to collect photos around big events and more as an “ongoing Pinterest for their life” — a way to organize all of their photos and then share them with friends. Ultimately, Ludwin and his team decided that the app they’d built was likely to “a middling app that’s not relevant,” and the blockbuster that they wanted to build.
“We’re going to keep trying until we find the real product-market fit that reaches tens of millions of users,” he said. “The photo album as an object in itself … we still feel there’s an opportunity to own that on your phone, and we want to give it another shot.”
So the new version of the app strips out all the location services and the idea of only building albums with people nearby. Instead, you create albums, you follow friends to see their albums, and you invite them to collaborate on certain albums. Albums can kept public or shared private, and they’re viewable on either in the app or on the web.
Here’s a fanciful metaphor: Ludwin compared all the photos that you take to white light, and Albumatic to a prism that divides that light into its component colors. In some ways, Ludwin said he was just trying to build the best app for the use case that the team was already seeing from users, a “Pinterest for your camera roll.” He’s hoping most existing users like the new app, though he admitted that those who are absolutely attached to the old version won’t be pleased.
Ludwin is also sharing the details behind the $4.2 million Series A that was revealed in an SEC filing in March. He didn’t want to talk about the funding then, he said, because Albumatic was in the middle of the aforementioned reimagining.
However, now he’s willing to share that the funding was led by RRE Ventures (where Ludwin is still a partner) with participation from Thrive Capital, SV Angel, Highline Venture Partners, CrunchFund (where TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington is a partner), Box Group, and betaworks.
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