Verizon Ventures and R/GA are kicking off the first round of their digital media “venture studio” and unveiling the first lineup of startups.
The program was announced back in March, with the goal of helping Verizon find innovation in media and advertising. The company says startups will be connecting — and potentially partnering with — its teams at Oath (the digital media organization that owns TechCrunch), Go90, FiOS and elsewhere.
The venture studio will operate out of Verizon’s new Alley co-working space in New York City. The startups will receive $100,000 in funding, and will participate in a demo day when the program ends in November.
Here are the companies:
- Ad Lightning offers monitoring software that notifies publishers of potentially harmful advertising.
- cognitiveVR helps brands and marketers record and analyze their virtual reality content, and to poll their users about the experience.
- GankStars is a mobile-first esports organization, with teams in Vainglory, Critical Ops and other titles.
- Imposium uses dynamic rendering to create marketing videos that are personalized to each user.
- ScoreStream is a platform for crowdsourced content around high school and local sports.
- Streamroot offers distribution tools to large online video broadcasters.
- Transmit.Live allows customers to send live video to multiple destinations and to promote their livestreams.
- Vidrovr is a video search startup focused on helping news organizations surface relevant content in their video libraries.
“We look forward to bringing R/GA’s award-winning services together with Verizon Ventures to help the chosen startup companies achieve meaningful scale,” said Stephen Plumlee, R/GA Global Chief Operating Officer and Managing Partner of R/GA Ventures, in the announcement.