Founders of the Column Five Inc. marketing agency said they have secured $2.15 million in seed money to grow their side endeavor, Visage Inc. in Irvine.
The round of funding was led by Venture51 in San Diego, with additional investment from K5 Ventures in Newport Beach; Robin Pimentel, a partner at K5 Ventures; and Kima Ventures in Paris.
Visage’s proprietary Web platform enables marketers to create data graphics using customizable templates to adjust colors, fonts or icons and to match their brand images.
“Each brand and business sits on rich insights from original market research, customer behavior and other compelling data,” said Jason Lankow, Visage’s chief executive, who served in a similar role at Column Five until 2014. “Turning those numbers into stories has fundamentally changed how we communicate, but has been relegated to analysts, data visualization practitioners and designers until now.”
Lankow, Ross Crooks and Josh Ritchie—Column Five co-founders—launched Visage in March 2014. Customers include VMware, Intuit and CareerBuilder.
Newport Beach-based Column Five, which focuses on content marketing, has worked with Microsoft Corp., LinkedIn, Red Bull and Nike Inc.
