Investment
Streaming Platform Adventr Raises $5M Seed Round, Investors Include John Legend & More By Ngozi Nwanji Devo Harris ADVENTR — AN INTERACTIVE STREAMING PLATFORM — is looking to disrupt the tech world with its patented voice-control technology. Founded by Devo Harris, a Grammy-awardwinning producer, Adventr serves as a low-cost, easy-to-use SaaS platform and it’s just closed a $5 million seed round, according to a press release shared with AfroTech. Adventr’s Seed Funding Round The recent seed round was led by Paladin Capital, a leading global investor that has an extensive portfolio of revolutionary cyber companies. Fellow investors included Reinventure Capital, In/Visible Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Harris’ longtime business collaborator and Grammyaward-winning artist John Legend and Karen JawMadsen. The funding will go toward Adventr’s technology team and marketing to “educate and inspire creators around the world,” according to Harris. Interactive Media Tools Adventr is set to promote accessibility for its users with its new voice-powered video streaming technology. The platform will feature techsavvy tools for editing and cross-platform video distribution, ultimately enabling users to securely turn video into an internet of things device. “We’re so pumped about our patented voicepowered video technology, SmartListen, which allows viewers to select actions within a video like choosing from a selection of options, making 78
January-February 2022
a call or a purchase — all through audio input,” Harris told AfroTech. “It’s a game-changer and is going to open creators’ minds to the possibilities of connected media beyond clicking in a video. We’re preparing to launch it publicly in late Q1 with select partners.” The Future Of Adventr As Adventr is an online space for seamless interactivity across a wide variety of channels, the streaming company is in the works of taking what it has to offer to social media. “We’re expanding significantly at Adventr, which is a testament to the quality of our product and the diversity of applications our customers are using it for,” Harris shared. “We’re staffing up and recently brought on former Vimeo General Manager Peter Gerard to lead product. We’ll soon be announcing Adventr integrations into popular social media platforms so millions of users will be able to easily create and share bite-sized adventrs natively in their favorite social apps.” The raise comes after the startup’s initial preseed round and on the heels of becoming one of the 2021 finalists for the Startup Battlefield pitch competition at TechCrunch’s Disrupt, an annual conference introducing the tech world to new, innovative startups. www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/streamingplatform-adventr-raises-5m-seed-round-investorsinclude-john-legend-more/ar-AAS04eq Image credit: afrotech.com DAWN
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