Israeli startup Roojoom, a recent graduate of the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator, has closed a $600,000 seed round, from 2B Angels and private investors.
The startup, which was founded a year ago, has built a presentation creation platform that lets businesses quickly create online tutorials and manuals, utilizing content from around the web — or building presentations using their own marketing materials.
The platform can also be used by individuals (and SMEs) — with Roojoom using a freemium pricing model to support different customer strata.
The startup claims high engagement levels for people viewing presentations built using its platform. “The average time a person spends reading a piece of content on the web is 20-40 seconds, which is not enough time to educate your customer or drive them to action. Roojoom closes this gap by connecting multiple pieces of content in a fun and engaging way, keeping readers engaged for over 9 minutes,” it tells TechCrunch.
“During this time the reader is led by the brand, step-by-step, through the content. Roojoom’s interface also includes a customizable call-to-action button that encourages them towards taking an action, such as purchasing a product or service, subscribing to a newsletter, following on twitter, etc.”
Its current b2b customer roster includes Microsoft Ventures, Clarizen and eToro, as well as “major banks and publishers” — but Roojoom is not disclosing the exact size of its user-base at present.
Ronen Smooha, former MS executive and a managing partner in 2B-Angles, is joining the round as an investor after previously working with Roojoom as a mentor at the Accelerator. “After working closely with Roojoom for four months, I believe that Roojoom has a winning team, great vision and the ability to execute,” commented Smooha in a statement.
Although Roojoom was not initially focused on the b2b market it said today it plans to use the seed funding to further develop its product offerings for businesses — with a specific focus on content marketing and training — having gained most traction as a platform for businesses and publishers to create content that can educate their own customers.
In terms of competitive landscape, Roojoom says this focus on delivering a “guided learning experience” sets its apart from other companies that offer presentation tools or simply act as content aggregators.
“Our advantage is that businesses can increase brand awareness and re-purpose available content to suit their customers – while leading them through the content step-by-step,” it adds.
Notably, Roojoom is not scraping any online content — rather it shows live web pages (and includes a link back to the original content), which allows it to circumvent imagery reuse copyright issues.