ViralGains, the viral video marketing firm, announced yesterday that they have raised $2.8 million of what is expected to be a $3.3 million seed round of funding. They will be using these funds to grow the supply and demand sides of its business and expand into new markets, which include New York City, Chicago and Southern California. ViralGains ace-in-the-hole is 'Praxis', the video ad platform that connects an advertisers YouTube content to targeted audiences. The company has numerous high profile clients, including Exxon, Nestle, Showtime and Lexus.
ViralGains ace-in-the-hole is 'Praxis', the video ad platform that connects an advertisers YouTube content to targeted audiences
The round, which was led by Hub Angles, has been running since last spring with a total of 45 participating investors, thus far, which include 500 Startups' Dave McClure, Chicago-based Pallasite Ventures, Joe Caruso, Jay Batson, Semyon Dukach and grammy-nominated rapper Nasir "Nas" Jones. ViralGains CEO, Jay Singh, says the round will “Allow ViralGains to scale up (its) advertising technology platform to bring on more advertisers who can buy video ad placements, and more publishers who can create revenue from those ad placements." He believes that "Viral video is having a broad positive impact on the global culture,” and that ViralGain is a company that make it easy “For advertisers of all sizes to drive views, shares, and conversations to their video."
ViralGains CEO Jay Singh
ViralGains was launched in 2012, and has, since then, been on a mission to “Create authentic relationships between advertisers and customers through online video.” Singh said that when they were first starting out, they were looking at what “Viral” really was, and found that “There are certain people who are more influential.” He said the idea behind ViralGains is that “You can target people who are more influential and serve them content that they are interested in. They will respond to it, and they will share that content.” The company has so far worked with 15 Fortune 500 brands, numerous advertising agencies, small to mid-sized businesses and YouTubers. Its inventory includes native and mobile video units placed within premium websites, influencers, social games, and social networks.
The idea behind ViralGains is that “You can target people who are more influential and serve them content that they are interested in. They will respond to it, and they will share that content.”
ViralGains generate returns for clients by targeting specific traits picked from thousands of human attributes, placing ads on native and social media site, and utilising the platform's real-time reporting capabilities and 'recommendation engine' to find viewers who are most interested in watching the advertiser's video. It's essentially very clever profiling. ViralGains saw revenue of $1.2 million in 2013, which is remarkable considering it was the company's first full year. This year, Singh believes the company will hit $3 million and come 2015, he's aiming for $10 million.
Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer and musician from Kidderminster in the UK who absolutely loathes the vast majority of viral videos. He'll watch anything that involves a dog or a cat doing something adorable though.
