It’s promising when a startup has Starbucks and Macy’s as clients, but online video platform Indi is ready to set its sights on emerging brands after a significant investment from Newport Beach-based Cambridge Cos. SPG.
Terms were undisclosed; Cambridge said it invests $500,000 to $7 million in companies.
The deal was signed last month and gives Indi a chance to offer its service to Cambridge’s portfolio of food and beverage companies. It’s also the first time the Irvine-based startup has received capital from an investment firm.
“To date, we’ve raised capital from high-net-worth individuals and strategic investors that use the platform,” founder and Chief Executive Neel Grover said. “It made a lot of sense because we have worked with relatively larger brands, and we want to expand our offerings, which works as well or even better for smaller brands.”
Grover described Indi as the next generation of YouTube. The platform allows consumers and celebrities to monetize videos and receive prizes or commissions from sales generated by consumers’ videos for brands, often called user-generated content.
Companies can also upload their own videos and launch campaigns for user-generated videos. For example, Starbucks asked users to create a short video nominating their favorite U.S. charity. It chose 25 videos that generated the most online buzz and said it donated $25,000 to each nominated charity.
“Our platform helps get your customers to talk about you, [and] you can incentivize them with different things,” Grover said. “Your customer already loves your brand.”
Grover said it’s become harder for advertisers to reach consumers, citing recent changes to Facebook’s newsfeed as an example. The social media giant announced this year that it will promote more posts from friends and family and fewer from brands and publishers.
Indi was started in 2013 by Grover, President Greg Giraudi and Chief Investment/Product Officer John Jackson. The founders are the former heads of Buy.com, Rakuten and Bluefly.
Investors include Denver Broncos General Manager John Elway, film score composer Hans Zimmer and actor Anil Kapoor.
Cambridge Chief Operating Officer Filipp Chebotarev said its investment in Indi made sense for its whole portfolio.
“It was a financial but also a strategic investment that could be leveraged into increasing the effectiveness of the marketing of our current investments, as well,” he said.
Indi also helps emerging brands with small marketing budgets, said Vice President Polina Chebotareva.
“Our companies, which are early stage, don’t have it in their budgets to have a big celebrity endorsement,” she said. “It makes much more sense and is much more organic to reach out to their followers and have [them] become their influencers.”
