Adventr, a New York-based startup that uses AI technology to let users interact with videos in real time, said Thursday it had raised $8 million in seed funding, with which it plans to grow its sales and marketing functions and open its first office.
Adventr offers a cloud-based platform that lets users upload assets and connect to their databases to create interactive videos for free. Those can include voice-powered videos, interactive training videos, or gamified ads.
It also provides an enterprise version with added integrations and service features that have been used by companies including Amazon, Cisco, and Marc Jacobs.
Advent CEO and founder Devo Harris told Business Insider that he was inspired by a scene from the movie “Minority Report,” where Tom Cruise’s character walked into a Gap store, and a 3D hologram immediately recognized who he was and commented on his recent tank top purchase.
“That’s 100% what we are looking to do,” Harris said. “There will be a day where media is more personalized, more intelligent, and more connected and all of that requires plumbing, design, and communication.”
To that end, Harris hopes Adventr will become like the “Photoshop of connected media,” where it becomes the standard platform people use to access such technology.
Adventr first raised a roughly $5 million seed round in 2021, led by Paladin Capital, with participation from Reinventure Capital, In/Visible Ventures, and music artist John Legend. Harris is a former Grammy award-winning producer who previously worked and went to college with Legend.
The additional funding announced this week is a top up to that round from the same investors and some new individual investors, which Harris said was a testament to the company’s growth. Adventr increased sales fivefold in 2023, he said, without offering a specific dollar amount. Adventr also claimed the click-through rate on its ad units had reached around 20%, far higher than the industry average of below 1% for static display ads.
Edward Dugger, president of Reinventure Capital, said his firm chose to make a follow-on investment because of his team’s shared vision with Harris about the evolution of video and that the startup is poised to scale.
“We believe its ease of use to develop applications that are limited only by the imagination, and its AI-driven technology give Adventr’s customers the competitive edge they have been seeking,” Dugger added.
Harris said the key focus for 2024 will be to increase the size of its team — which currently stands at 13 full-time employees and around 10 outside advisors — including by hiring more executive leadership.
Check out the investor deck that helped Adventr secure $8 million in seed funding below. Some of the information in the slides has been redacted.
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