We’ve been fans of FEM Inc’s socially-conscious programming and next-level analytics tools for some time, so it’s great when you’re able to help tell the story of good people doing awesome things:
Los Angeles-based media technology firm FEM Inc announced the launch of PRIZMA, a video engagement platform that powers smart syndication, video discovery and sustainable monetization.
The company, founded by former Google engineer Natasha Mohanty, former Google executive Rachel Payne, and Caltech neuroeconomist PhD Meghana Bhatt, also announced $3 million in funding from Javelin Venture Partners, MESA+ LLC (a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company in connection with the FEM Inc’s participation in the Disney Accelerator program), and several, prominent angel investors.
FEM Inc. works with video content creators across a number of verticals, including business/finance, health and well-being, sports, lifestyle, entertainment, gaming and news. FEM Inc’s technology makes recommendations based on an understanding of the whole person and their deeper motivations, aspirations, passions/interests, emotional state, and behaviors.
FEM Inc has been quietly building its content partners and technology for a couple years, and all that hard work has built a firm foundation as 2015 has proven to be a banner year.
FEM Inc was recently chosen as the only LA-based company in this year’s batch of Disney Accelerator companies. Says FEM Inc co-founder Payne of the experience, “Both Disney & Techstars have an amazing set of mentors that have brought a lot to the table, already providing a lot of value not just what were doing today but our future vision — and of course its undeniable if you are looking to serve millennials, what better partner than Disney in that effort.”
Payne also notes that the Disney Accelerator program is intense yet rewarding, as the team spends nearly six hours every weekday meeting with incredible advisors, mentors, and peers in advance of the October 6 presentation day — all while continuing to build a living, breathing company.
PRIZMA is a personalized video engagement platform for both content creators and media platforms. With smart syndication, discovery, analytics, and monetization, PRIZMA creates new revenue and audience reach opportunities for video content creators and publishers, enabling them to tap into the exponentially growing video market with a powerful artificial intelligence recommendations engine based on psychology and neuroscience.
Says Payne, “We want to make it possible for any website to program a great video experience for their audience, quickly and easily, with a distributed platform that anyone can embed. PRIZMA will automatically show video from our ecosystem of partners that are relevant to that user, that resonate most with the viewer to serve their needs better, instantly increasing video views, view time and overall engagement.”
Continues Payne, “If you are a site that’s focused on healthy food, you want to supplement editorial with great video content. But you cannot physically go out and get all those deals for that content on your own. We do the work for you, so you just tell us what content you’re looking for, and we provide you with automatic playlist of videos from very high quality sources.
Payne also notes strong engagement metrics for PRIZMA, which has been proven to outpace other content syndication platforms. “When viewers see our platform, an average of 8% click to watch a video with 80% completing the pre-roll ads. 30% of those who watch a video come back in less than a week to watch more videos. When they complete a video, viewers watch an additional 2-3 videos in the same session. Smart syndication offers partners high quality video content that is monetized, which means more revenue for them and a better experience for their viewers.”
PRIZMA seamlessly integrates contextualized video content from a quality partner ecosystem to showcase the best video content for that viewer at that moment. PRIZMA’s algorithms analyze and index the current user context, preferences, and score videos in engagement platform real-time that maximize performance in milliseconds to produce contextualized video content recommendations.
Partners in the PRIZMA video ecosystem include premium publishers, media brands and multi-channel networks. Together, PRIZMA and its partners are committed to driving new revenue and to engaging viewers more deeply with their videos, website and brands.
Says Todd Northcutt, Vice President of Product, IGN, “With PRIZMA, IGN is able to reach new audiences in the right context while also increasing our video views and ad inventory,” said . “PRIZMA is really easy to use for syndicating our video content to more places in an automated and intelligent way. We are also integrating their technology into our own site to improve video discovery and increase viewer engagement. We’re thrilled to be working with the FEM Inc. team.”
“PRIZMA is like nothing else available today,” says Noah Doyle, MP Javelin Venture Partners. “We’ve been impressed with the results of the technology from the early beta tests to full deployment. This is highly scalable technology that dramatically enhances the user experience and will have a huge impact on content owners and websites who increasingly depend on video and video monetization to drive their businesses forward.”
Payne also tells us that a version2.0 of the analytics dashboard is coming soon, which will help publishers can, “Learn more about not just what your audience enjoys, but why — what content is performing on what sites, in which context, the motivations for why people watching your content.
“People have deeper needs & motivations, why they do what they do, the underlyng driver of behavior. We wish to understand what those motivations are; we think about people more than just keyword matches or recency & popularity, we think about why is someone watching this video about creating healthy meals for their family — maybe it’s a mother who needs to make a quick meal for her family after work doesn’t have a lot of time but doesn’t want to sacrifice nutrition. Maybe her motivation is to provide her family more nutritious options.”
And as for making the move from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Payne says, “I love it! I’m happy I’m here, this was the best decision ever — I was born here, and was in San Francisco for most of my career. I love it up there, but I have to say now is an amazing time to be an entrepreneur in LA, especially as a female entrepreneur.”
