Pluggd raises $6M for audio-video word search
Pluggd, a Seattle company that lets you search audio and video files for words or themes, has raised just under $6 million in financing.
Pluggd is a hot company because it does something well that few others have been able to match. You can search for “iPhone,” and Pluggd will give you a heat map showing all the places in the video file where iPhone is mentioned or even themes related to the iPhone. Click on image below for a demo.
See our previous coverage of the company.
Intel Capital, the venture arm of chip company Intel, led the round. Intel had earlier invested in the company’s seed round. Other investors include DFJ Frontier, Labrador Ventures and the Band of Angels. We’re hearing the company received an acquisition offer, but turned it down after receiving multiple favorable offers from venture capital firms.
The company is moving quickly. Last time we covered the company, it searched only audio files. Now it searches video.
It also offers a widget to search audio and video on third-party sites.
Other companies offer competing technology, but none distribute the same heat-map precision features. One is YuMe, of Redwood City, Calif., which also uses speech-recognition technology to allow advertisers to decide which videos to advertise on. That company employs people in India to make sure that videos are about what they say they are. It has received more than $7 million in funding from Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners, and BV Capital and others. Another is EveryZing, which raised $10 million in June.
Pluggd and YuMe were both voted “best in show” at July’s Under the Radar event.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
