R/GA Ventures, a venture studio program from digital agency R/GA, announced the eight companies in its Marketing Tech Venture Studio with advertising and marketing services company IPG and technology and social media company Snap Inc.
They include:
Adludio, a sensory advertising platform connecting users and brands with creative mobile experiences;
Bot analytics platform Dashbot;
Humblee, which helps businesses tell stories at scale using new technologies;
Lytics, which helps companies personalize engagement with customers through a customer data platform;
Popwallet, a platform that enables marketers to manage promotions and other lightweight brand content through mobile wallets;
Quickframe, a platform for creating short-form video at scale;
Relative Insight, which enables brands to understand and relate to audiences by turning language into data;
And Whalar, which provides a creative, scalable and cost-effective solution to authentic content creation through influencer collaborations.
These companies will have access to resources and support from R/GA, IPG’s agency network and Snap throughout the program, which R/GA said will emphasize opportunities for business development, pilots and partnerships and provide the companies with access to brand leaders and agency talent.
The program will take place at R/GA’s New York office and conclude September 27 with an event featuring presentations from each startup.
An R/GA rep said the agency wants the companies it selects to leave with pilots and/or partners, so it only picks those that make sense for said partners, which is why these companies are focused on things like content and analytics.
“Everyone has been picked so they potentially can partner with Snap, IPG agencies [and] with RGA’s clients,” the rep added.
“This program will give IPG clients access to companies that are pushing innovation in an industry that is going through exceptional change,” said Michael Roth, chief executive of IPG, in a press release. “For the selected companies, they’ll gain exposure to our global talent network, roster of leading marketers and Snap’s strategic leadership, giving them a significant advantage in the market.”
Imran Khan, chief strategy officer of Snap, added, “We are excited to work with and support the growing ecosystem of partners that are innovating in the mobile advertising space, from leaders like IPG and R/GA to the startups selected for this program. We believe it will help advertisers of all sizes take advantage of increasingly engaging and creative ad formats for smartphones.”
This marks R/GA Venture’s eighth program. A ninth program will launch this summer with Verizon Ventures, the venture capital arm of telecommunications company Verizon Communications, the rep added.