News
4 un-stealthed Boston tech startups
March 9, 2012
By Kyle Alspach, Boston Business Journal
HubSpot’s Dharmesh Shah is among those advocating for fewer entrepreneurs to start out in stealth. In March, for instance, he told attendees at the MassChallenge launch: “Don’t be paranoid” that someone is going to steal your idea.
Idea theft is probably not going to happen, and meanwhile you’ll have a tough time attracting a team and funding if you can’t talk about your idea, he said.
But even Shah can support a stealth mode startup when the entrepreneur seems to know what they’re doing — he’s among the investors in Kibits, which emerged from stealth in March with a mobile app for creating “mini-social networks.”
In November I did a post on 10 stealthy Boston startups I’m watching. For those keeping score (and I know you are), four of the companies have recently come out of stealth with their products, including Kibits. Also on the list was Session M, which on Tuesday announced it has raised $20 million in VC after announcing its mobile engagement platform to the world in March.
Here’s what you need (or just might want) to know about the four companies:
Swoop (formerly Shopximity). In its February unveiling, Swoop said it plans to marry the informational popup link to local deal offers. Swoop’s first market is focused on helping consumers find local food offers; a recent blog post said it is offering “hyper local sales and coupons” through four new sites, including CinnamonSpiceandEverythingNice.com. Swoop’s founders are CTO Simeon Simeonov, previously EIR at General Catalyst Partners and technology partner at Polaris Venture Partners, and CEO Ron Elwell, once a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.
Kibits. Through the app, users are able to create an individual “Kibit” for any occasion that arises (which can exist for as long or as short a time as needed); the Kibit can include chat along with sharing of photos, video, notes and documents. A new version available in the Apple store allows users to invite people to their Kibit group via a web link, the startup said on its blog Monday. The startup’s founders are CEO Matt Cutler, formerly the founder of NetGenesis and head of marketing at Visible Measures, and CTO David Greenstein, former chief architect at StillSecure.
Session M. The company said its $20 million funding, led by new investor Charles River Ventures, will be used to expand its platform for mobile advertising retention and engagement. The company says it has developed technology that can be integrated into mobile apps, which allows the users of the apps to collect rewards from taking certain actions inside the app — such as setting up a calorie counter on the Livestrong app. Over the past six months, the company says it has opened offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago, and has hired salespeople from Microsoft, MTV and AT&T. Session M’s founders are CEO Lars Albright, formerly a director at Apple (following its acquisition of Quattro Wireless, which he co-founded), and chief product officer Mark Herrmann, a co-founder of GameLogic.
Paydiant. The company, backed by $7.6 million from North Bridge and General Catalyst, said in January that it’s enabling pilots with Florida-based FIS of a mobile payment option for in-store purchases at the point of sale. Paydiant says it offers “only mobile wallet and mobile payment platform that works with existing payment instruments” such as PIN debit and credit cards. The company’s co-founders are veterans of m-Qube/Verisign, Siebel Systems and edocs.
Swoop Dramatically Improves User Engagement and Increases Revenue Opportunities for Leading Food and Lifestyle Publishers
CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire – May 10, 2012) – Swoop, a service that seamlessly integrates relevant information about products and services — at times in the form of sponsored content or advertising — into web content, today announced that the company is providing its innovative service to leading online food and lifestyle publishers, including: Cooking.com, iFood.tv and a number of food blogs including CinnamonSpiceandEverythingNice.com and Drinkoftheweek.com. Swoop helps publishers increase engagement with users by providing consumers with relevant information — integrated directly into website content — which they would normally seek in a secondary search, or may not have even known was available. As a result, publishers enjoy the benefit of keeping users more engaged and on their sites longer.
Swoop is designed to discover billions of decision moments and create serendipitous engagement opportunities where publishers can enhance user experience and advertisers can deeply engage with their target consumers.
“iFood.tv has been a leader in bringing innovative ways to teach beginners and experts alike how to cook. We are now excited to partner with Swoop to bring our users an innovative new way to ensure that they are saving money and to serendipitously discover exciting new offers. Their integration at the ingredient level is an entirely new concept in advertising,” said Vikrant Mathur, CEO of iFood.tv.
“By using Swoop, we can provide our visitors with valuable information that they would normally seek in a secondary search, integrated directly into the recipes and articles they are reading,” said Jennifer Lee, VP Advertising, Cooking.com. “This helps to keep users engaged and coming back for more.”
“Being able to enhance and customize the user experience on a website is our number one priority,” said Ron Elwell, CEO of Swoop. “Swoop takes pride in being able to provide relevant information to consumers that they normally would have to search for, without ever having to leave the site. Improving the user experience is something that many publishers strive for, and we look forward to working with publishers to achieve this goal.”
Swoop recently launched their Local Offers service, which presents hyper-local content that matches a consumer’s interest, or intent, as it relates to food with corresponding offers and coupons at the local market where they shop. Swoop’s ability to identify a consumer’s intent and interest provides advertisers the opportunity to create meaningful engagement by inviting the consumer in for a relevant and timely discussion.
About Swoop
Swoop is a service that seamlessly integrates relevant information about products and services — at times in the form of sponsored content or advertising — into the content that consumers are engaged with online. Swoop is able to discover a consumer’s intent and interest based on a deep understanding of the content they are engaged with, providing advertisers with the opportunity to have deep and meaningful engagement with consumers. Founded by a team with deep experience in web publishing, advertising technology and consumer marketing, Swoop is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Swoop is venture backed by US Venture Partners and Valhalla Partners. For more information, please visit www.swoop.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Interview: Swoop CEO Ron Elwell Introduces Swoop’s Ad Platform Focused on Deep Web Content Integration
March 2, 2012
By Otilia Otlacan, Ad Ops Online
Swoop has recently announced the launch of its service, which seamlessly integrates relevant information about products and services – at times in the form of sponsored content or advertising – into web content. We reached out to CEO Ron Elwell for more insights into what seems to be one of the most user-friendly and non-intrusive advertising solutions currently available.
Otilia Otlacan: Congratulations for Swoop launching its first vertical – food! Could you give us some insights into what made you work on a deep content integration solution for advertisements and information?
Ron Elwell: Over the past decade publishers and advertisers have seen declining engagement with display advertising. Engagement rates with display ads are now below 0.09% and less than 16% of users ever click on an ad. This has led to declining revenue for publishers, declining engagement for brands and consumers are faced with more disruptive and intrusive advertising. We believe that by focusing on enhancing the consumer’s experience, through providing information relevant to the content he or she is engaged with, we can address all those issues.
Otilia Otlacan: Can you explain a little how Swoop works and what differentiates it from traditional contextual advertising platforms such as Google AdSense?
Ron Elwell: Swoop is differentiated from these traditional contextual platforms in three ways. First, traditional contextual ad platforms gain an understanding of the content on the page. They are answering the question: “What is this page about?” So in the case of food they may know the page is about a Chicken Recipe. Second, they look at the ads they are paid to display and find the one that best matches “Chicken Recipe”. Finally, they put those ads into the standard ad units that users have learned to ignore. Now compare that to Swoop. First, while we understand the context on the page, we are seeking to discover moments of intent and interest at a much more elemental level. So rather than “Chicken Recipe” we may know that the chicken is on sale at your favorite market, that a coupon is available for the canned tomatoes and that greek yogurt is a healthy substitute for sour cream. Next, as we understand each of these things, we surface the best information we can find to enhance the user’s experience. Most of this content is not ads, it is simply useful information that we have discovered and surfaced for the consumer, and we optimize around the best possible user experience, rather than the most possible revenue. Finally, we inject our content into the content stream so that the information and offers flow in context with the user experience, rather then a traditional ad unit.
Otilia Otlacan: What pricing models and metrics should an advertiser expect to see in Swoop?
Ron Elwell: We operate on a pay for engagement model. We invite the user to engage with the brand and give them a “hint” of what it is we want to tell them. If the consumer accepts the invitation and engages with it, it is at that point that the advertiser pays. We work with the advertisers on engagement rates, time spent, and actions completed, things like video plays, e-mail captures, social media interaction and whatever best fits that particular interaction.
Otilia Otlacan: What ads are very well integrated into the web content, it is thought that they’d attract a higher amount of invalid clicks and engagements. What is your experience around this issue, and do advertisers raise such concerns?
Ron Elwell: We agree that in context ads that expand on rollover result in a significant number of unintended engagements, and even worse, detract from the overall user experience. Even if the user were interested he or she would have no way of knowing what the ad is going to be. In our model we provide the user with a “hint”, an icon or a brief description of the content we have for them, such as a healthy heart icon or “save locally”. In this way the consumer can make the educated decision of whether or not to engage. If they choose to engage, the marketer knows they have real engagement from a consumer who has accepted an invitation to learn more.
Otilia Otlacan: Tell us about your typical publisher, who would that be?
Ron Elwell: Our first vertical is food, so currently any site with a recipe section would immediately benefit. We have made the implementation so easy that a publisher can go to www.swoop.com/localoffers/ and sign up on our self- service portal. It takes less then a minute!
Otilia Otlacan: What’s next for Swoop?
Ron Elwell: We’ll continue to enhance our food offering, rolling out e-commerce offers and coupons in the short term, with more enhancements to follow. We will also begin to expand to other verticals where we believe we can bring information to consumers, in a way that improves their browsing experience.
Otilia Otlacan: Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
Ron Elwell: We hope your readers will agree with us that advertising doesn’t have to be interruptive and invasive; that by working together with marketers and publishers, and by focusing on the overall user experience, we can bring engagement to marketers, content, better user experience and new revenue streams to publishers, and the serendipitous discovery of useful and timely content for consumers. Please visit us at www.swoop.com, or on Facebook and Twitter at swoop123.
About Swoop
Swoop is a service that seamlessly integrates relevant information about products and services – at times in the form of sponsored content or advertising – into the content that consumers are engaged with online. Swoop is able to discover a consumer’s intent and interest based on a deep understanding of the content they are engaged with, providing advertisers with the opportunity to have deep and meaningful engagement with consumers. Founded by a team with deep experience in web publishing, advertising technology and consumer marketing, Swoop is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Swoop is venture backed by US Venture Partners, Valhalla Partners, and General Catalyst. For more information, please visit www.swoop.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Indivly, Swoop, and Vivox: Three Boston Startups to Watch
February 24, 2012
By Gregory T. Huang, Xconomy.com
Getting caught up on some startup news around town… Two new ones emerging from semi-stealth mode in the field of content-linked deals, and one gaming and communications veteran going direct-to-consumer for the first time.
—Indivly is a social Web startup led by founder John Clark, perhaps best known as half of the creative team behind this week’s “Bostlandia” video spoof. The company, which is going live next week, lets you earn points for sharing content (videos, photos, articles) with your network. The points can be used to get rewards or buy deals from brands that form marketing partnerships with Indivly.
—Swoop, the company formerly known as Shopximity, revealed its plan to insert links to local deals into content sites, starting with food and recipe websites. The startup is led by CEO Ron Elwell and co-founder Sim “Making Ads Suck Less” Simeonov. The latter tweeted today that “it was an epic adventure” to get the Swoop domain name (I bet it was).
—Vivox, the voice-chat and communications company led by CEO Rob Seaver, is going back to its gaming roots this week with a new direct-to-consumer product. The new offering, called C3 (a little less explosive than C4), lets gamers invite other players and communicate with them inside or outside the game on basically any device. The big deal, apparently, is that the application is free for gamers and doesn’t require any server setup, so it should reach a pretty broad community of gamers and publishers.
Swoop Launches With Pop-Up Local Deals
February 24, 2012
By Rodney Brown, Mass High Tech
A pair of former venture capitalists have launched Swoop, a new company that plans to marry the informational popup link to local deal offers. The company is the next evolution of existing startup Shopximity, according to one of the founders, Simeon Simeonov.
Founders of Cambridge-based Shopximity – now Swoop – are Simeonov, the CTO who used to be executive in residence at General Catalyst Partners and technology partner at Polaris Venture Partners, and CEO Ron Elwell, once a partner at Bessemer Ventures. Also among the founding trio is marketing guru John Handl, founder and CEO of marketing firm Brand in Hand.
According to the company’s website, Swoop has a way to put local offers onto any company’s website by using a method similar to the once very popular informational search engine popups that appeared when a site visitor hovered a mouse cursor over a text link.
The company is backed by U.S. Venture Partners, Valhalla Partners and General Catalyst, the Swoop website states. According to Simeonov, the backers have put in $4.8 million in an initial funding round.
Swoop says its goal is to make local offers even more targeted to the specific market by allowing a site such as Bon Apetit – to use one example on the Swoop website – to use Swoop’s link-based deals offers to give people looking for dessert recipes deals at a local bakery, for example, instead of deals at a spa or an oil change shop. That makes the ads more like timely, wanted notices, and less like spam, Simeonov said.
Local food deals are the best place to start, for a few reasons Simeonov said in an interview.
“Food is something that matters a lot to people, and it’s a big part of people’s budgets,” he said. “You couldn’t pick a less spammy category to begin with.”
In addition, there was the fact that aggregating food deals from local grocery stores across the nation and offering the right one to potentially millions of visitors of the websites using Swoop each day would stress the technology right out of the gate.
“We are a horizontal platform technology and we wanted our first vertical to be something that would really put us to the test,” Simeonov said.
The company, which has under 20 employees according to Simeonov, is gathering the data for the local deals it needs to feed to websites at a furious pace, he said. “We are gathering it in every possible way you can imagine. We have some deals, we have some datafeeds and in some cases, we are manually entering them. We have tens of thousands of stores right now.”
Simeonov is also the founder and CEO of Fastignite Inc., an advisor firm for startups he launched in 2009 after leaving Polaris. Prior to joining Polaris in 2002, Simeonov was vice president of emerging technologies and chief architect at Macromedia Inc., prior to its acquisition by Adobe Systems Inc. in 2005. Earlier, he was chief architect and co-founder at Allaire Corp., bought by Macromedia in 2001 for $360 million.
Before joining Bessemer, Elwell was CEO of Octave Communications, a Nashua, N.H.-based, privately held voice conferencing equipment company, that was acquired by Voyant Technologies of Colorado in 2003.
Ultimately the goal, Simeonov said, is to change the way people use advertising on a website. Instead of thinking of better display ads for people to ignore more quickly, or get more frustrated by, Swoop aims to deliver ads with the user experience of a website in mind.
“Publishers are in a very tough spot right now,” Simeonov said. “Those publishers that are making free content available are stuck. They need to make money from advertisers but advertisers are driving away visitors. I think (Swoop) changes the nature of the game substantially.”
Swoop Launches to Put Deals Directly Into the Content You Read
February 24, 2012
By Walter Frick, BostInno
What if great websites weren’t ruined by aggressive, obnoxious, or creepy ads? Wait scratch that. What if you could get deals as good as Groupon and LivingSocial without having your inbox overwhelmed? Hold up, what if you could kill both those birds with one stone? Simeon Simeonov, founder and CTO of Swoop, thinks he can.
Swoop, which launched yesterday, injects links to local deals into web content and is initially focused on food websites. So if you’re reading a recipe on a food blog, each ingredient can link to a deal or coupon for that item, and the blogger can make some money without plastering the site with ads.
Embedding ads into content already exists – so-called “contextual advertising” – but Simeonov told me that thus far it’s been technologically unsophisticated, and that his system can be much more targeted.
With existing contextual advertising, you’ll scroll through a recipe and see those double-underlined links for, say, yogurt. Advertisers can buy that keyword and try to sell you anything they want against it. Usually, of course, it’s yogurt, but it could just as easily be diet pills.
Swoop differs in a few ways. First, they offer discounts, rather than just ads. Second, they only inject the deal if their system believes it’s a good match for the content, rather than just letting advertisers sell whatever they want against any keywords they buy. And third, they localize all of this by serving up deals to users based on their ZIP code.
(Take a look at the screenshot at the right; the ad pops up within the website so users don’t leave what they’re reading, but only if users actually click on it.)
Simeonov believes that this model can improve the user experience for readers while actually adding value for content publishers.
“The fundamental problem I see with online display advertising is that, for more than a decade, the industry has been focused on optimizing for ROI at the expense of user experience,” Simeonov told me. “This is why users have trained themselves to ignore ads and why we’ve had a stream of news related to malvertising and privacy.”
He holds up search advertising as a successful alternative where monetization doesn’t come at the expense of user experience.
“Search advertising looks very different from display advertising not just because search pages are different from content pages but also because search vendors are optimizing for the dual goals of great ROI and great user experience,” he said. “The two goals are not mutually exclusive.”
Rather than settle for just targeted ads, he believes that the focus on deals from local businesses will prove to be more relevant and valuable for the user.
Swoop doesn’t yet make any money off of the deals, as Simeonov believes his technology must “earn the right” to do so by providing value. Ultimately, he sees the business expanding beyond food and the technology being applicable beyond deals.
“Swoop is not just about deals,” he said. “Swoop is about putting the relevant information that a consumer might need at key decision moments just a click away.”
Talking to Simeonov it became clear that his vision for Swoop is much grander than simply turning a profit off of deals or ads. What really got him excited was the idea a future for the web that doesn’t rely on “carpet bombing” users with ads and that doesn’t leave content producers without a way to earn a living. With Swoop, he’s hoping to do his part to create that future.
Innovators & Start-Ups
February 24, 2012
Cynopis.com
Swoop, a new start-up that integrates relevant information about products and services (at times, it says in the form of advertising or sponsored content) with web content, has officially launched with its first service: Swoop Local Offers for food. Here’s how it works: A consumer reviewing a recipe on a website integrated with the offering will have the option to click on a piece of content on the recipe page (such as the text), after which an interactive overlay will pop up displaying content and offers (for nearby stores). The service is meant to eliminate the need for the consumer having to go search for deals on their own, which means he or she will not be leaving the site. While this is good news for web publishers, Swoop also benefits advertisers, according to Swoop CEO Ron Elwell. “This increases user engagement with the site and presents an opportunity for advertisers to provide relevant and timely offers and information,” said Elwell.
Swoop Dives in With Local Offers
February 23, 2012
By Mark Walsh, MediaPost
Cambridge, MA-based start-up Swoop is launching a new service that lets Web publishers and advertisers show relevant local offers to consumers at the right time.
Formerly Shopximity, Swoop is kicking off the service with a focus on local food offers. For example, if someone is browsing a recipe that calls for butter, Swoop would show an alert about a sale on butter at local stores or a manufacturer coupon for a discount. A user could then click on a link to open a window that shows all the local deals or other related information.
People can even use the system to create shopping lists and specify stores they’re interested in by Zip code. At present, all the information on deals comes from weekly circulars published by local supermarkets or other food stores.
Integrating Swoop only requires publishers inserting a piece of Javascript code at the bottom of their sites. The idea is that they get free content, which keeps users on the site longer and generates a new, search-like revenue stream. Marketers get access to potential customers at the exact moment someone has shown an interest in their product or service.
How does Swoop know what offers to present, and when? Essentially, its software uses natural language processing and semantic technology to understand what the user is reading at a micro level and then combines that with search terms or the general context of an article, plus any information a user has provided, like a Zip code.
“Fundamentally it is a technology that brings the power of online search and discovery to Web content,” said Swoop founder and CEO Ron Elwell. The company plans to expand the service beyond food to other industry verticals over time.
Kristine Welker, chief revenue officer at Hearst, stated an interest in “how Swoop can integrate with our existing content.”
For now, the company isn’t charging publishers or advertisers to use the Swoop technology. But Elwell says Swoop plans to charge advertisers on a per-engagement basis. For a brand like Smart Balance, it might show the recipe browser a message asking if they’re interested in a “heart-healthy alternative” to butter as an ingredient. If the user clicks on the link, it will open a larger landing page with information on the brand’s spread and why it’s better for you.
“In the end it is very much like search — the user chooses to engage with the sponsored content, and that’s when we get paid,” said Elwell. Until the revenue begins flowing, Swoop has $4.8 million in venture funding that it raised last year from investors, including US Venture Partners and General Catalyst, to help finance operations.
Swoop Brings the Power of Search Discovery to Websites Everywhere
Integrates Relevant Information About Products and Services Directly Into Content Online Based on Consumer Intent
CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire – Feb 23, 2012) – Swoop today announced the launch of its service, which seamlessly integrates relevant information about products and services — at times in the form of sponsored content or advertising — into web content. For example, a consumer reviewing a recipe will see information about ingredients on sale at their favorite store, nutritional substitution recommendations, healthy alternatives, or coupons. This information is integrated into the content and replaces the need for the consumer to break away from their current action and initiate a separate search.
“Our goal is to improve the user experience by bringing the power of online search and discovery to web content by providing information consumers would normally have to search for or in some cases might not have even known was available,” said Ron Elwell, CEO of Swoop. “In turn, this increases user engagement with the site and presents an opportunity for advertisers to provide relevant and timely offers and information, seamlessly integrated into the user’s web experience.”
For the first vertical it is launching, Swoop will focus on helping consumers find local food offers. Swoop Local Offers presents hyperlocal content that matches a consumer’s interest, or intent, as it relates to food with corresponding offers at the local market where they shop. Swoop’s ability to identify a consumer’s intent and interest provides advertisers the opportunity to create meaningful engagement by inviting the consumer in for a relevant and timely discussion.
“At FRWD, we are consistently looking at ways to reach our consumers in highly relevant moments,” said John Grudnowski, Managing Partner FRWD whose clients include General Mills, Deluxe and 3M. “Swoop brings the power of online search discovery to the websites our consumers are engaged with on a daily basis and enables invitation-driven engagement. Swoop’s service is especially valuable to us because it enhances the consumer’s experience as they interact with web content and provides us with a great opportunity to express the top-line benefits of our clients’ products as well as the ability to provide a call to action.”
“We are always looking for innovative technologies that will improve our users’ experience across our publications which include Good HouseKeeping, Woman’s Day, Cosmopolitan and Redbook,” said Kristine Welker, Chief Revenue Officer at Hearst. “We are excited about how Swoop can integrate with our existing content, enhance our users’ experience and provide a new revenue stream — without users ever having to leave our sites.”
Formerly known as Shopximity, Swoop is backed by US Venture Partners, Valhalla Partners, and General Catalyst. The executive team has combined to found nine startups in the fields of e-commerce, web services, ad tech, on-line privacy compliance, and large web destination sites. Swoop was founded by CEO Ron Elwell, previously CEO of Goal.com, the tenth largest sports site in the world; CTO, Simeon Simeonov, who was a founder of Evidon, the online advertising industry’s first privacy compliance platform and Chairman John Hadl, Founder of BrandinHand, Co-Founder of Total Beauty Media and Venture Partner at USVP.
About Swoop
Swoop is a service that seamlessly integrates relevant information about products and services — at times in the form of sponsored content or advertising — into the content that consumers are engaged with online. Swoop is able to discover a consumer’s intent and interest based on a deep understanding of the content they are engaged with, providing advertisers with the opportunity to have deep and meaningful engagement with consumers. Founded by a team with deep experience in web publishing, advertising technology and consumer marketing, Swoop is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Swoop is venture backed by US Venture Partners, Valhalla Partners, and General Catalyst. For more information, please visit www.swoop.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Contact Information
Media Contact:
Zinnia Gill
Horn Group for Swoop
O: (646) 202-9760
E: zinnia.gill@horngroup.com
Swoop Gives Food Websites An Injection of Local Deals
February 23, 2012
By Anthony Ha, TechCrunch
Swoop, a startup that’s launching today, says it’s giving food websites a new way to convince readers to stick around, and to make some money in the process.
CEO Ron Elwell says Swoop’s technology can look at the text of a food website and automatically inject links to local deals when they’re relevant. So, for example, if a site includes a recipe that calls for mayonnaise, Swoop can insert a link at the mention of mayonnaise, and if the reader clicks on it, a small window will open showing any nearby deals on mayonnaise. Users can specify their zip code and which stores they’re interested in seeing deals from, and they can create shopping lists of the items they want. Elwell says Swoop will add more personalization options over time (the company tracks repeat users through cookies).
You can see a Swoop-linked site here.
Most of this content will be totally free for the stores — Swoop is just trying to aggregate as many local deals as it can, whether they’re pulled from the store’s website, a feed of new deals, or wherever. However, it can also include special ad links. In one example that Elwell showed me, in a recipe calling for black pepper, Swoop added a link touting the health benefits from black pepper’s antioxidants, and clicking on the link brings up an ad for a specific brand. Elwell emphasizes that these ads are a “completely closed system” — they don’t lure visitors away from your page by linking to the advertiser’s website (or to anyone else’s).
There are other companies offering to insert advertising or affiliate links into online text. One of the distinctions, Elwell says, is that Swoop isn’t just trying to help publishers make money, but also to bring a “search discovery” experience to their site. After all, one of the most common things for someone to do after viewing an online recipe is to search for places where they can find the ingredients at a low price, so this should be a natural way to keep readers at a website for a longer period of time. Advertising should only be a small percentage of the links that Swoop creates. (Even though the actual execution is pretty different, listening to Elwell talk about his vision reminded me a bit of Apture, a startup that was recently acquired by Google.)
For now, Swoop’s service is limited to local offers, but Elwell says it will be adding coupons, Amazon offers, and advertising in the next month or so. He also describes this as a “horizontal” technology, so the company plans to expand beyond food into other areas, like baby and beauty products.
The company is looking to work with publishers large and small — for the smaller sites, the company offers a self-serve option where publishers provide a few details then receive JavaScript for their site. As for bigger publishers, the Swoop press release includes a quote from Kristine Walker, chief revenue officer at Hearst (publisher of Good HouseKeeping and Cosmopolitan, among other magazines), who says she’s “excited about how Swoop can integrate with our existing content.”
Last fall, Swoop announced a funding round US Venture Partners, Valhalla Partners, and General Catalyst. Elwell tells me the amount raised was $4.8 million.
10 Stealthy Boston Startups I’m Watching
November 10, 2011
Boston Business Journal by Kyle Alspach, VC Editor
Shopximity Simeon Simeonov has been active in the Boston startup and VC community for the past decade. I haven’t met him, but I know this from reading old Mass High Tech stories. Simeonov was a partner at Polaris, and later founded startup advisory firm Fastignite. Now he’s on to solving the issue of why online advertising is so crappy, via stealthy startup Shopximity. The website doesn’t say much, but he did speak at FutureM and contributed a piece to Xconomy in September where he gave a few hints. Shopximity, he wrote, is among the startups that is “re-thinking display advertising using better ad formats, effective yet respectful targeting, and cooperative ways to engage users.”
USVP, Valhalla and General Catalyst invest in digital marketing start-up Shopximity
October 31, 2011
By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist
Shopximity founder Sim Simeonov confirms that his Cambridge start-up has raised a “solid-sized” Series A round of several million dollars from a trio of venture firms: US Venture Partners, Valhalla Partners, and General Catalyst, where Simeonov recently served as an executive-in-residence.
Simeonov isn’t saying much about what Shopximity will do yet. “We want to provide a new model for value-based marketing, not just coupons or price discounts,” he says. The company will be focused on Web and mobile advertising. “When users don’t see things that are valuable to them, they teach themselves not to click on the ad, and that penalizes both advertisers and publishers,” he says. “We think people not being engaged with ads is a massive missed opportunity to make the Web more useful.”
The company will focus initially on the consumer packaged goods industry — think shampoo and shaving cream — “because those are things that people are in the market for all the time,” says Simeonov. Ron Elwell, formerly CEO of Goal.com, is Shopximity’s chief executive.
The company has offices at Alewife, and about five full-time employees. The software development consultancy Bocoup is helping Shopximity with product development. Simeonov says Shopximity will be more specific about what exactly it is doing — beyond just “making the Web suck less” — early next year.
Former FTC Director Talks Online Privacy – Facebook, Google & Startups
April 7th, 2011
Bostinno.com, by Cheryl Morris
Regulation. It’s something that could seriously disrupt your business model. With the rise of social networks and the growing sophistication of the Internet, online privacy is one area ripe for regulation — one that has been building in momentum for several years and is arguably at its peak.
Yesterday Lydia Parnes, the former Director of the Consumer Protection Bureau at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), visited Boston. She spoke with a small group of investors, entrepreneurs and executives from online advertising, data storage, mobile, and analytics companies about what’s happening on Capitol Hill with regard to online privacy. The lunch event was hosted by Shopximity, a Boston startup at the intersection of ad targeting and privacy.
We’ve all seen it in the news: Google, Facebook among many others like Rapleaf and Pandora are getting a tap on the shoulder from the FTC about how they keep secure consumer data and personal information. “It’s an extremely exciting time. We’re really at a place of innovation right now. There are tremendous opportunities, as well as risk,” Parnes, who was at the FTC for over 25 years, opened up with.
On the risk side, Parnes, who could only share so much about her time at the FTC, shared past public examples: mainly, how Google and Facebook in particular basically now have an ongoing and continuous dialogue with the FTC to ensure online privacy.
But what should a company, say a startup in the ad tech space, without big money like Facebook or Google do if approached the FTC?
Parnes’ answer: “’We’re a startup’ just doesn’t make it on the Hill.” The best thing to do, she recommended, is to look at (a) your business from a privacy perspective and (b) what you tell consumers you do with their information. If those things match up and you get a call from the FTC you can have more confidence that what you’re doing is okay. She also recommended thinking about online privacy as a data supply chain. “You need to create responsible data supply chain management,” she said. “And that goes beyond ads.”
She also introduced the notion of privacy by design that’s currently being employed by the FTC. The idea is that when building your products, you should build them from the ground up thinking about online privacy. Google, for example, would say they practice privacy by design in that they have a privacy specialist on every single product team.
“Lydia Parnes provided great insight into how the privacy and regulatory landscape has changed and offered a strategy for companies to follow: privacy-by-design,” shared Sim Simeonov, co-founder and CTO of Shopximity. “This is the path we are following at Shopximity: from our business model to our patent-pending technology.”
Parnes noted that one big shift at the FTC is that the organization itself is now more technologist heavy (vs. just lawyers) than ever before. This, she said, means the organization understand much more robustly what’s happening, the factors involved, and what’s possible by savvy tech entrepreneurs. On the flip side, this also means it’s much more difficult to fly under the radar if you are practicing risky policies with consumer data.
And that applies to the nascent mobile space, as well. Location, among other factors, arguably brings an entirely new dimension to online privacy. With smartphone penetration to pass fifty percent here in the US this year, it’s becoming top of mind for the FTC. And while Parnes believes mobile privacy and online privacy can be approached similarly, that may not be the case currently at the FTC.
Given Boston’s thriving mobile sector, with leading mobile ad targeting networks like Jumptap and analytics companies like Localytics, a great discussion ensued. From what the equivalent of the online cookie is on the smartphone, to whether the comapny providing the plumbing vs. the consumer-facing app store should be the entity responsible, many questions remain unanswered. At least in the near term, the FTC seems to be relying on self-regulation.
“Protecting consumer privacy is of paramount importance for any ad tech organization. Today’s event underscored the current industry position of proactivity,” Eric Brown, co-founder of Media Armor, a mobile ad analytics startup here in Boston, shared with us after the event. “It is now a basic requirement for doing business, a stance that Media Armor fully embraces.”
Thanks to Lydia Parnes for sharing her insights with area entrepreneurs, investors and executives and to Shopximity for hosting the event.
Boston’s Next Big Mobile Startup? Shopximity, Its Founders & An Exclusive Event Next Wednesday
April 1st, 2011
Bostinno.com, by Cheryl Morris
On Monday, General Catalyst’s Executive in Residence and serial entrepreneur Simeon Simeonov announced on his blog that he has been hard at work launching a new mobile startup here in the Hub (soon to close a Series A round of investment). While the company is still in stealth mode, Sim shared more new details about his startup with BostInno today:
First, the name of the company: Shopximity (shopping + proximity).
Second, the other two co-founders: Ron Elwell (CEO) and John Hadl (Executive Chairman). Elwell is a former partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, most recently known for helping build Goal.com into the 10th largest sports site in the world (the company was sold just last month). He was also an initial investor in Millenial Media. Hadl is generally known as one of the best guys in mobile advertising, currently venture partner at US Venture Partners and CEO Brand in Hand, a full-service, end-to-end mobile media and marketing company.
Third, (well, it’s pretty apparent from the above and his blog post) the startup is at the intersection of mobile, retail, local and advertising. It is NOT, however, an ad network, nor an app. And while it is, quote, “providing value” to consumers, he couldn’t confirm or deny whether or not it is a direct to consumer play.
Fourth, Sim made mention of a past startup he co-founded, a real-time assurance platform for online ad impressions (Evidon, formerly known as Better Advertising). Might Shopximity be doing the same for retailers and advertisers in the mobile space? Sim says no, so we can’t help but wonder if what he’s learned from working at the intersection of privacy and targeting applies to Shopximity.
Fifth, following up on #4, Shopximity is hosting an exclusive lunch event this coming Wednesday on a topic core to the opportunity the startup is cornering in the mobile space. The guest of honor: Lydia Parnes, the former Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection (BCP) at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). According to Sim she is “the best educated person at the intersection of ad tech, regulation, and privacy.” Having been at the BCP for quite some time and having hired many of its current regulators, she obviously has some very unique insights into what’s going to happen on the consumer protection front when it comes to online and mobile advertising.
Are you an ad tech company? Mobile or location-based company? Consumer data enabler, aggregator or privacy advocate? Agency representing brands looking to reach consumers over mobile? Entrepreneur cornering any or all of the above spaces? Or more generally, are potential regulations of mobile consumer privacy core to your business? This event is for you, and not to be missed.
Spaces are limited, so please add your name to the form here for access and follow up information. The location for the lunch is TBD, but will obviously be local in the Boston/Cambridge area.