Gurgaon-based digital products startup Simpli5d Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates NLPCaptcha.com, has raised an undisclosed amount in its pre-Series A round of funding from YourNest Angel Fund and Udaan Angel Partners, a top company executive told Techcircle.in.
"The proceeds of the funding will primarily go into building the team, product enhancement and geographic expansion," said Amit Mittal, CEO, Simpli5d Technologies.
"The team has demonstrated excellent execution in the high growth segment of mobile and internet, thereby making digital platforms truly relevant for brands. The monetisation model within mobile apps has the potential of revolutionising the way this market operates," added Girish Shivani, executive director and fund manager at YourNest.
Started by Mittal and Sidharth Oswal in 2012, the company offers products across different formats to help advertisers reach out to their digital audience in an engaging way. An IIM-Lucknow alumnus, Mittal was working in the media sector for seven years, prior to starting Simpli5d. Oswal, an MBA from Fore School of Management, had been with the banking sector spearheading sales of technology enabled solutions for banks like Yes Bank, ICICI and Kotak.
According to the company, 70 per cent of banner ads and other digital ads have turned into blind spots. While video roll ads are skipped more than 70 per cent of the time, humans account for less than 40 per cent of global web traffic. It further claims that the future of advertising is digital engagement, and had thus launched NLP Captcha advertisements some time ago- since Captcha is an important tool to prevent spam comments in content portals.
Currently a team of 10 employees, the company is planning to increase this number to 25. In terms of product enhancement, the company is looking at adding products that can increase the usefulness of its service for advertisers. "We need to build an intelligence system that can track the customer’s thought process. If someone is going through a finance website and is reading an article on automobiles, then we should be able to figure out if he/she is planning to buy a car soon or not," Mittal said.
The company also plans to expand into Europe and other Asian markets soon. However, it won't be setting up offices in the markets, and will just have a sales team there. "The core team and technology will be based out of India, while the sales team will be sitting there," he said.
According to the company, it gets money on a revenue share business with publishers with no upfront costs. It claims to be working with over 300 publishers and more than 70 national and global advertisers that include brands like Visa, Lufthansa, P&G, Cadbury, Axis Bank, Idea Mobile and Samsung, among others.