Packing giggles into short clips
Editor’s note: Here are five Bay Area startups worth watching this week.
Whether it’s a short video about felines, the president or the weather, the goal at Gfycat is to make people pay attention — and maybe even evoke a giggle or two.
Gfycat offers online tools to make GIFs, a venerable online format for short, soundless videos that typically last only a few seconds before looping and repeating. Because they’re so short, people can easily share them. CEO Richard Rabbat wants his company to become the “YouTube of GIFs,” and the main place people turn to for these short, mobile-friendly clips.
“Our attention spans have gotten shorter and shorter,” he said in his Palo Alto office. But “people don’t just want to know one thing. They want to know a little bit of everything and the highlights of that thing.”
The company has been around since 2015, and has since racked up 80 million monthly users, 400 million page views a month, $11 million in funding and 20 employees — but no revenue. Rabbat said Gfycat will start adding advertising to its home page soon.
It has partnerships with media outlets like Mashable, Popular Science and Funny Or Die, and recently built a bot to help Reddit users put GIFs in comment
“Our spans attentionhave gotten shorter and shorter.” Richard Rabbat, CEO, Gfycat
threads. Yet it is competing with a number of GIF-friendly toolmakers, including Imgur and Giphy.
Inside the Palo Alto office, GIF creator Daniel Estrada was clipping movie trailers for some of the company’s partners. He said he looks for that moment in the trailer that evokes reaction or emotion, and whets the viewer’s appetite for more.
Then, just for fun, he called up his favorite YouTube video of a man pulling a series of pranks on people, skipped to a moment that always makes him laugh, and then sliced it into a looping two-second GIF.
“I don’t know why I find it funny — it’s so lame,” he said.
Also trending: StatMuse
What it does: Lets users search for sports statistics through plainEnglish queries. It is a one-stop shop for live scores, game recaps and team schedules. What happened: Recently released an iPhone app, where users can ask questions — about such topics as stats or game schedules — and have them answered in an NFL player’s voice. It also plans to make use of Amazon’s Alexa soon. The NFL accepted it into its NFL Players Association accelerator this month. Why it matters: Though the data it uses is publicly available, CEO Eli Dawson said StatMuse’s software takes it a step further by analyzing the information for the user. Headquarters: San Francisco Funding: $11.7 million, according to Dawson Employees: 18
Trace Genomics
What it does: Helps farmers maintain healthy soil, by offering them technology that warns of an infestation or an unexpected pathogen in a particular plot of their land.
What happened: Cofounder Diane Wu said the company has hired several new employees. It also was featured in an investment website’s roundup of startups using artificial intelligence in agriculture. Why it matters: “There has been increasing regulation for what you can put into the ground, and there is a heightened awareness of ‘How can we maximize the potential in every acre of land that we’re growing?’ ” Wu said.
Headquarters: Burlingame
Funding: $4.2 million, according to Wu Employees: 17
HelpShift
What it does: Integrates customer support software into apps such as Microsoft Outlook. With the software, users can directly contact a customer service representative through the app.
What happened: The company recently named a new CEO, Linda Crawford. Crawford is a Salesforce veteran.
Why it matters: “As the mobile device is being more and more used and utilized, there will be a stronger demand for in-app customer support,” said HelpShift’s Craig Rentzke.
Headquarters: San Francisco Funding: $38.53 million, according to Rentzke Employees: 150
Couchsurfing
What it does: Similar to Airbnb, this website connects travelers to people willing to let them stay in their home. But the major difference: There is no money exchanged between the members.
What happened: The company has recently been featured in a number of media outlets for seemingly random reasons. One article’s title: “How to stay vegan while traveling.”
Why it matters: Couchsurfing is yet another hospitality and networking site that operates in a legal gray area — even though there is no money involved.
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding: $22.6 million, according to Crunchbase
Employees: 11-50, according to Crunchbase
“There has been increasing regulation for what you can put into the ground, and there is a heightened awareness of ‘How can we maximize the potential in every acre of land?’ ” Diane Wu, co-founder, Trace Genomics