Chute raises $7M, launches new Ads product

Steven Loeb · May 7, 2013 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/2f54

Chute allows brands and publishers to add photos and videos to apps and websites

There are a lot of photo-sharing start ups out there, most of which seem to focus on the consumer side of the business, while seeming to not pay too much attention to the business side. There are many out there catering to individual users, but not on brands and publishers. 

Photo collection startup Chute, a platform that allows its customers, typically brands and publishers, to add photos and videos to their apps and websites, has now raised $7 million in Series A funding, it was announced Tuesday. 

The round was led by Foundry Group, with existing investors Freestyle Capital and U.S. Venture Partners also participating. The company, which came out of Y Combinator, previously raised about $3 million in funding from institutional and individual investors, including Klout co-founder and CEO Joe Fernandez, bringing its total raised to roughly $10 million.

"We will be using the funding on expanding our team, focusing on making our products even stronger, and growing our market share and awareness," Chute co-founder Ranvir Gujral told VatorNews.

In addition to the new funding, Chute also revealed that it is releasing a new product called Chute Ads, which will allow brands to inject the photos and videos it pulls from around the Web into digital advertisements.

The first customer for Chute Ads will be Condé Nast Traveler.

“Chute Ads provides an innovative tactic for Condé Nast and its brands to give advertisers the ability to also be publishers,” Craig Kostelic, Head of Digital Global Sales for Condé Nast Travel Network, said in a statement. “The ads encourage user interaction and provide a more engaging and immersive experience, which makes the ads more effective and more attractive to consumers. Real-time content means audiences will never see the same ad twice, and in-ad calls-to-action ensure engagement and long-term relationships.”

Founded in 2011, San Francisco-based Chute is a platform for media-rich apps and websites. It is used by brands, publishers and developers to add photo and video functionality to their apps or and websites.

The company offers a number of other products in addition to Chute Ads, including SlideChute, a platform that tracks visual media in real time from people or hashtags, and Chute Live, which lets users display real-time content live at events.

What separates his product from other photo sharing applications, Gujral said, is that Chute "offers the whole package for managing visuals - from standalone pages to live event engagement to ad experiences."

That is why Chute's main competition is "with a custom development project or an agency that has offered to build something for a brand."

"While there are many companies that may aggregate Tweets and photos, for example, there are no companies that offer a full-stack solution from the backend (APIs and SDKs) to management and curation to publishing in places as diverse as a mobile app, digital billboard, or ad unit."

The philosophy behind Chute is to contine the "Visual Revolution" while is letting people "tell richer and more engaging stories."

"We empower brands and publishers with the ability to leverage the power of the visual in online and live campaigns and now in their advertising units. Ultimately we believe that we will power a larger and larger share of brands’ visual content distribution. We believe we will power the 'media layer' of the Internet."

The company is currently processing and serving billions of photos for clients like NBC News, Turner, House of Blues Entertainment, Conde Nast, the NBA, and Saks Fifth Avenue. 

The company is "growing swiftly" and now has over 2,000 customers since launching last year.

(Image source: https://www.getchute.com

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Chute is a platform for media-rich applications and websites used by brands, publishers and developers.  Chute makes it easy to add photo and video functionality to any application or site.  
Chute's platform allows developers to build advanced media-rich mobile and web applications without needing to worry about building any back-end infrastructure.  Chute enables developers to rapidly build almost any media-centric application imaginable. 
   
SlideChute, built on top of the Chute platform, makes it easy to collect, manage and display photos across the web. SlideChute allows any publisher or app to seamlessly integrate user generated uploads from any source.
Chute is privately held and headquartered in San Francisco. Anyone that is interested in learning more should visit www.getchute.com.