Newzmate, a startup that develops emailing solutions for digital publishers, has just attracted a $300,000 investment from Polish VC firm Xevin Investments and Dutch angel investor Bas Godska for their smart emailing solution.
Newzmate main product, christened ‘Traqli,’ helps digital publishers create and deliver news digests based on readers’ individual preferences and interests. Based on semantic analysis and content curation techniques, the Traqli technology recognizes content topics, defines connections between articles and tracks users’ behavior on the site.
As a result, personalized information is delivered to each reader, regardless of the publisher’s database volume.
Unlike existing email marketing solutions, Traqli requires almost no time to provide personally hand-picked content for readers and to assemble emails. Thus, publishers extend their readership, increasing readers’ loyalty and revenue. Click-through-rates, page view volume and visit time increase by 200% or more,” the company claims.
“Traqli initially caught my interest thanks to the impressive increase in reader interaction with publisher’s content and due to the company’s scalability potential,” Godska commented. “In addition, the team left a good impression and the business started to gain traction.”
“The service received a positive feedback from the publishers so far and I’m very optimistic about their future,” said Marek Rusiecki, President of the Management Board of Xevin Investments.
Newzmate was founded in 2013 in Ukraine – a country where an internationally-oriented startup ecosystem is currently developing fast in spite of the political and economical woes, as analysed in a recent industry report.
The founders, Alexei Chapko and Dmytro Shandyba, initially planned to develop a news aggregator, but in the process of development they transformed their product into an email marketing platform for digital publishers.
20 million emails every month
Soon after inception, the startup completed an acceleration program at Happy Farm, a tech startup accelerator in Kyiv (Kiev), and raised an initial $70,000 investment.
The startup now claims to send over 20 million emails every month and to provide over 100 million recommendations. It is used by a dozen of significant media publishers from various countries, including Digital First Media (USA), Genesis Technology Partners (Africa, Kazakhstan), EurActiv (Slovakia), KyivPost (Ukraine), Ekonomika Communication Hub (Ukraine) and ITC Publishing (Ukraine) as well as East-West Digital News (Russia) and Ukraine Digital News (Ukraine).
The recent capital injection will allow Newzmate to go further into the European and US markets while Traqli’s functionalities will be enhanced.
“Based on our pipeline, we will reach $200,000 in revenues and increase our monthly audience coverage to 50 million before the end of the year,” believes Chapko.
“The Traqli product provides an easily integrated solution to drive the quantifiable email marketing results that publishers need — audience engagement and monetization,” RogueMedia Managing Director Alison Kane stated.
“Also important is the fact that Traqli’s team has an impressive blend of strategic insight and nimble response to market opportunities, which in my view is the perfect combination necessary for a startup to maximize the potential of digital disruption,” she added.
“Traqli combines a smart technological approach with an undeniable aesthetic and usability superiority. We’re very glad to be among its early adopters,” said East-West Digital News co-founder Adrien Henni.
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Сооснователи проекта: CEO Алексей Чапко (слева) и CTO Дмитрий Шандыба (справа)
На сегодняшний день Traqli уже работает с более чем десятком онлайн медиа в Украине, Европе и Африке, покрывая 14-миллионную аудиторию, ежемесячно отправляя более 20 млн. e-mail-ов и предоставляя более 100 млн. рекомендаций контента. Среди издательств и медиа, работающих с Traqli –DigitalFirstMedia (США), Genesis Technology Partners (Африка и Казахстан), EurActiv (Словакия), KyivPost (Украина), Ekonomika CommunicationHub (Украина), ITC Publishing (Украина), EWDN (Европа).
«Traqli предоставляет легко интегрируемый сервис для эффективного решения двух самых важных вопросов, волнующих издателей – вовлечения аудитории и монетизации»,– считает Элисон Кейн (Alison Kane), управляющий директор Rogue Media, экс-вице-президент по развитию Digital First Media (Денвер, США).
Справка
Два сооснователя стартапа – CEO Алексей Чапко и CTO Дмитрий Шандыба – познакомились в 2012 году, работая в команде другого стартапа. В 2013 году основали свой стартап Newzmate, который изначально был задуман как новостной агрегатор, но в процессе развития преобразовался в сервис персонализированных email-рассылок Traqli.
В том же году стартап прошел обучающую программу в бизнес-акселераторе Happy Farm и привлек инвестиции в размере $ 70 тыс. Менторы Traqli – основатель и CEO Whalepath, выпускник акселератора 500 Startups Артем Гассан (Сан-Франциско, США), бывший вице-президент по развитию Digital First Media, управляющий директор Rogue Media (Денвер, США) Элисон Кейн (Alison Kane), основатель и управляющий директор консалтинговой компании Acrobator.com Бас Годска (Bas Godska), серийный предприниматель, инвестор TMT Investments, председатель Совета директоров Happy Farm Игорь Шойфот (Сан-Франциско, США).
