Closing a deal. Q & A session with the founder of Instreamatic (RU)

Date: 28.05.2020 - 28.05.2020  | 16:00
Location: webinar
Link to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eE0Ttg9rQpC7T6YH2AHv8Q

The round ends on May 29th. At this meeting, the founder will answer questions from investors who decided to join the deal.

Speech is a natural way of communicating with people. And recently, voice interfaces are increasingly replacing the need to understand visual interfaces. The use of voice commands first penetrated the media business: when people turn on the radio, change songs, chose podcasts, all with the help of voice. Therefore, startup Instreamatic has developed an AI-based interactive voice dialogue platform focused on the media market. The platform can be used both for Voice AI advertising and for brand communications with its users in the media channels.

Join up and meet the founder

If a person says: “I don’t want to hear more about this,” then the brand may offer something else instead of the product that was rejected, or build communication in a more close area for the person and cause a positive emotion.

With Instreamatic, brands get not only gender, age, and environment from voice responses, but also emotions and reasons why the user does not want to interact with the brand at the moment. Building brand communications is taking it to the next level with Voice AI technology, which uses self-learning models.

In order to capitalize on the opportunities that COVID-19 has opened, as well as to complete integration with advertising platforms and exit to Round A, Instreamatic startup holds an investment seed round.

The round size is $ 400K, of which $ 160K has already been funded.

The lead investor in the syndicate transaction is Network VC Syndicate Fund, which collects part of the round of $ 250K for this transaction. You can enter the transaction with a minimum check of $ 10K.

• Outrageous informational advertising noise. The vicious circle in which the advertising market is currently located: increase in advertising load -> decrease in user engagement -> decrease in advertising prices for brands -> increase in advertising -> decrease in user engagement;

• people don’t like advertising, but they like brands;

• brands seek dialogue with their target audience; brands do not want to be annoying and annoying.

• voice interfaces have already become mainstream;

• 55% of the audience of 15-30 years old use voice search daily;

• according to Juniper research: by 2023, 8 billion digital voice assistants will be involved (2.5 billion in 2018);

• COVID-19 has led to a shift in advertising costs from traditional media advertising to digital marketing.

The platform consists of two products:

• Voice AI Core - voice intelligence is responsible for understanding the speech and emotional background of a person;

• Voice Dialogue Marketplace - a platform that connects platforms (136 platforms with 15M users at the moment) and advertisers into one exchange, where advertising is placed.

The patented AI technology allows you to:

• integrate into client applications for iOS and Android;

• Support online advertising and digital audio advertising;

• add new use cases, including large-scale marketing surveys “How do you like the new iPhone?”, collect contributions (many media companies in the USA earn half of the revenue from contributions).

• recognize more than 40 languages.

By 2022, only in the US, voice advertising will grow to $ 19B growth along with the following advertising segments:

• programmatic advertising $ 57B;

• Smart TV ad $ 7B;

• audio and radio advertising $ 17B.

• raised $ 2.5M as part of the pre-seed and seed round;

• main investors: MathCapital, SeedInvest, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Hawke Venturers, Run Capital Investment Fund, Bas Godska, Kasper Wandi.

• Convertible Note $ 19M pre-money valuation cap;

• 20% discount;

• 5% interest rate;

• burn rate - $ 40K;

• close rand A - in the 4th quarter of 2020;

• Revenue in 2019 - $ 1M ARR;

• Forecast for 2020 - $ 2.8.

• Advertisers buy ads on the advertising exchange, a commission is charged on these advertising costs. $ 0.2 - $ 0.5 per dialogue;

• Publishers, brands, and advertising companies license technology. They are charged a license fee depending on use.

Partnership:

The best streaming services for music, content and podcasts: Pandora, Salem Media, Federated Media, Triton Digital, Gaana, Hakuhodo, Jacapps, Airkast, SurferNETWORK, Radio Record, GPM Radio.

Brands using Instreamatic:

Intuit, VW, Infiniti Cars, Visa, Samsung, Alfa Bank, IKEA, HP, Adidas, BMW, McDonald's, KFC, Land Rover, Ford, Range Rover, Starbucks, Chevrolet, Nissan and many others.

The startup does not currently have a direct competitor because of the difficulty in repeating the technological solution. Startup expects the emergence of potential competitors from related advertising segments.

• Audio Advertising - AdsWizz;

• Content Marketing - Prezi;

• Ad Chatbots;

• Ad Tech - media.net, AppNexus.

• 4 co-founders Stas Tushinskiy (CEO), Victor Frumkin (COO, CFO), Simon Dunlop (International BDD), Mikhail Ilyichev (CRO);

• Charles Andrew Whatley - Director of Business Development;

• Ilya Lityuga - CTO;

• 26 employees in three offices: California, London, Moscow.

• Advisers: Christopher Murphy, Igor Shoifot, Paul Deastlov, Siqi Chen, Mark Rabe.

• Founded in 2015;

• Launch of the first pilot versions of 2018;

• The platform already operates in 4 countries: USA, India, Japan, Russia;

• This year will launch in Canada, Germany, Australia and Mexico.

• Top 5 at major international competitions: tech NYC’17 and SXSW ‘18;

• Forbes included Instreamatic in Top 25 AI startups to watch in 2020;

• IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau, the main international association of advertisers) included the solution from Instreamatic in the main trends in the use of artificial intelligence in advertising;

• The company owns 2 patents;

• Advertising campaigns for IKEA and Volkswagen received awards.

Date of publication: 19.05.2020