Team Downey Veteran Launches Epoxy, Providing Tools To Help YouTubers Engage With Fans

YouTube might be the primary distribution channel for most young and emerging video creators, but it’s not the only place where they will find an audience. Los Angeles-based Epoxy, which is officially launching today, hopes to help YouTubers reach and engage with fans on all the other social networks they might be found on.

Epoxy was founded by former Team Downey digital chief Juan Bruce, along with Jason Ahmad, who founded financial software start-up Proto. Together, they began building a platform to grow audiences on YouTube by providing more comprehensive tools for them to interact with fans.

By integrating with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well as YouTube, Epoxy provides a way for video creators to boost social distribution of their content, while also getting real-time analytics around what fans are saying about their content. In that way, Epoxy users are able to increase views through social referrals, while also growing their subscriber counts.

According to co-founder and CEO Bruce, on Twitter only about 20 percent of conversations around a video will have the creator’s username attached. As a result, more than three-quarters of the conversation is lost without a tool like Epoxy.

The company therefore built a search engine on top of the YouTube API which allows creators to interact with people talking about their videos even if they’re not specifically mentioned by screenname.

Epoxy-01-03-Channel-Overview

In addition, Epoxy has built tools for distributing videos on social networks, and doing so in a way that will appeal to different audiences depending on where they appear. For instance, the platform provides a player the carries all the same monetization, but optimizes for sharing on that network.

The company also provides unparalleled tools for enabling its creators to share on Instagram. Epoxy users can very quickly use their own existing videos and repurpose them for Instagram with a built-in editor just for that purpose. Once cut, they can be distributed on Instagram without even having to move the video asset to their mobile phones.

All of that is officially launching today, although Epoxy has been offering the platform in beta to users for a while. To deliver its technology to users, Epoxy has raised $2 million from investors that include Upfront Ventures, as well as Greycroft Partners, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Advancit Capital, Machinima founder Allen DeBevoise, Maker chairman Ynon Kreiz, Shine Group VP of Digital Yoel Flohr, and Stradella Road CEO Gordon Paddison.