Innovacorp is an early-stage venture capital firm that helps knowledge-based startups commercialize their technologies in the global marketplace. It invests in early stage Nova Scotia entrepreneurs, combining venture capital with business mentoring and incubation facilities. Innovacorp was established in 1995 and based in Halifax, Canada.

Innovacorp

The mission at Build Ventures is to help founders build companies. Period. They provide early stage capital to emerging, game-changing Atlantic Canadian technology companies. Their team has deep operational and investment experience. The startup journey can be challenging, but they know what it takes and they are here to help.  They’re based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and are focused on companies in Atlantic Canada. They like to invest after your seed round. Ideally, you have begun to build a great team, have a product solving a meaningful problem and are working in what is – or one day will become -- a huge market.

Build Ventures

Level Equity Management is a growth equity firm that focuses on providing capital to software and internet companies. The firm was founded in 2009 by Benjamin Levin, George Mcculloch, and Sarah Sommer and is headquartered in New York, United States.

Level Equity Management

Dash Hudson

Dash Hudson is more than a social media management platform. Accelerate your brand growth, analyze trends, and predict the performance of visual assets across key marketing and e-commerce channels.

Dash Hudson is a leading social media management platform that enables brands to craft entertaining content, engage with their audiences, and drive business growth through data-driven insights. The company's proprietary data, derived from over 6,000 social media handles, empowers social marketers to navigate ever-changing trends and optimize their marketing efforts.

Dash Hudson's Social Media Trends Report Uncovers the Power of Community and Entertainment in Driving Sales Growth

Creating a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Social Media Marketing Tools Starter Kit

Guide to Social Reporting in 2024

Harnessing the power of social influence to fuel online sales

Social Commerce

Dash Hudson CMO on why future brand leaders need both data and creativity

ByteDance

To integrate the respective marketing automation platforms toTikTok app, allowing TikTok’s users to manage and optimize their content campaigns directly through the platform.

Using AI to automate, enhance and optimize marketing activities

Marketing Automation

Startups providing tools to automate the execution of marketing campaigns across varied channels.

Dash Hudson is a leading social media management platform that enables brands to craft entertaining content, engage with their audiences, and drive business growth through data-driven insights. The company's proprietary data, derived from over 6,000 social media handles, empowers social marketers to navigate ever-changing trends and optimize their marketing efforts.
Dash Hudson's platform offers cross-channel insights and improved team efficiency, fueling smarter decisions for brands. The company's focus is on leveraging entertainment-focused content strategies, particularly those involving creators, to build communities and drive revenue. Their research shows creators experience a 97% higher engagement rate when collaborating with brands compared to brands' own content.
Recognizing the diminished significance of traditional "following" due to content-driven algorithms, Dash Hudson underscores the importance of nurturing social media communities. Their study, conducted in partnership with NielsenIQ in July 2023, revealed a direct correlation between entertainment-based social content and sales growth. Beauty brands with the highest Entertainment Scores and Engagement Rates, including Laneige and Kylie Cosmetics, experienced an average sales growth of 100%.
Dash Hudson's platform enables brands to craft content that entertains, engages, and inspires, ultimately driving consistent business results. Their Social Media Trends Report, released bi-annually, provides insights to help businesses tailor their strategies for increased engagement, brand awareness, and growth.

Hootsuite is a social media management platform that allows users to schedule, publish, monitor, and analyze social media content across multiple networks from a unified dashboard. Its key product offerings include content scheduling tools, social media monitoring and analytics, team collaboration features, social listening capabilities, and integrations with various social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Hootsuite's core functionality revolves around the ability to streamline social media management processes by centralizing various social media activities into a single platform. Its scheduling tools enable users to plan and queue content for publishing across different social networks, while its monitoring features facilitate tracking brand mentions, competitor activities, and audience engagement. The platform's analytics tools provide insights into social media performance, aiding users in understanding the effectiveness of their social media strategies.
Hootsuite also emphasizes team collaboration by allowing multiple users to access and manage social media accounts, assign roles and permissions, and implement approval workflows for content publishing. Additionally, its social listening capabilities enable users to monitor conversations, trends, and keywords relevant to their brand or industry.
While Hootsuite offers a free trial and a limited free plan, its more advanced features are available through paid subscription plans, with pricing tiers ranging from the Professional plan at USD 99 per month (billed annually) to the Enterprise plan tailored for larger organizations with custom pricing.

Hootsuite

GRIN is a comprehensive influencer marketing platform designed to help brands manage their influencer programs efficiently. It streamlines the entire process, from identifying and recruiting suitable influencers to facilitating product seeding, campaign management, content tracking, and performance reporting. GRIN's key features include a vast creator database, advanced search capabilities, Shopify integration for seamless product fulfillment, automated communication workflows, and robust analytics tools.
GRIN's platform allows brands to discover and connect with influencers across various social media channels, including Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. By leveraging GRIN's extensive database, brands can filter and search for influencers that align with their target audience and campaign goals. The platform's Shopify integration simplifies the process of sending products to influencers, creating trackable links, and generating discount codes.
Once influencers are on board, GRIN enables brands to create and manage campaigns, define deliverables, and automate communication sequences. The platform tracks influencer content, captures user-generated content (UGC), and provides detailed performance metrics, including engagement rates, conversions, and revenue generated. GRIN's reporting capabilities allow brands to analyze the success of their influencer campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
Key customers and partnerships
GRIN has collaborated with notable brands such as MVMT, a luxury watch company, Lume Cube, a specialty lighting brand, tentree, an apparel brand, Darn Good Yarn, Tubby Todd, and Hush Blankets. These partnerships demonstrate GRIN's ability to cater to diverse industries and support businesses in scaling their influencer marketing efforts.

GRIN

Bazaarvoice is a technology company that provides a Social Commerce AI suite, enabling brands to curate and showcase user-generated content across various social media platforms. Its flagship product, the Media Library, serves as a centralized hub for collecting, publishing, and managing social content from customers, influencers, partners, and the brand itself. This tool leverages AI-powered features to sort, tag, and prioritize high-performing media content, streamlining workflow and expediting legal approvals.
The company's Social Commerce AI suite offers a range of solutions to optimize social engagement and drive conversions. It generates on-brand photo captions, surfaces authentic user-generated content aligned with the brand's identity, and identifies top trends and themes for social media strategies. Bazaarvoice's Like2Buy solution allows brands to create shoppable Instagram and TikTok feeds, where visitors can browse products, read posts, and make purchases directly from the social storefront.
Additionally, Bazaarvoice's Showroom feature transforms photos and videos into interactive storefronts, enabling users to discover new products through visually appealing AI-powered experiences. This approach has proven effective, with 46% of Showroom visits converting to ecommerce sessions.
In terms of performance metrics, the company's solutions have demonstrated impressive results. Like2Buy visitors convert to ecommerce sessions at a rate of 59%, and these referred visitors tend to spend more time browsing, view more pages, and have higher average order values compared to average mobile consumers.

Bazaarvoice

NTWRK is a curated live video shopping platform that offers exclusive access to limited-edition products across various categories like sneakers, streetwear, collectibles, and more. It revolutionized the ecommerce industry by combining live streaming with online shopping, creating an engaging and interactive experience for consumers.
NTWRK's platform allows customers to watch live streams hosted by influencers, celebrities, or brand representatives who showcase and discuss the featured products. During these events, viewers can interact through live chat, ask questions, and make purchases seamlessly without leaving the video stream. This innovative approach provides transparency, fosters a sense of community, and creates a sense of urgency and exclusivity around the products on offer.
Since its inception in 2018, NTWRK has partnered with renowned artists, brands, and personalities such as Post Malone, Lewis Hamilton, BLACKPINK, and Takashi Murakami, offering their fans unprecedented access to exclusive collaborations and limited releases. The company has been at the forefront of the live stream shopping industry, which is estimated to reach USD 68 billion in sales by 2026 in the US alone.
In February 2024, NTWRK acquired the popular youth culture media company Complex, marking a significant step in its evolution. By merging Complex's content and reach with NTWRK's ecommerce platform, the combined entity aims to create a comprehensive digital hub for "superfan" culture, encompassing commerce, digital media, and music.
Key customers and partnerships
Through its strategic partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG), NTWRK gained access to industry-leading music labels like Interscope Geffen A&M (IGA) and Capitol Music Group. This collaboration allows NTWRK to deliver exclusive collaborations and cultural experiences directly to passionate music fans, deepening the connection between artists and their audiences.
Notable partnerships include exclusive collaborations with BLACKPINK x Murakami and the Interscope 30th Anniversary vinyl collection, featuring dialogues between visual artists like Damien Hirst, Kehinde Wiley, and Ed Ruscha, and iconic Interscope artists from the past three decades.

NTWRK

ShopShops is a live-shopping platform that allows hosts to showcase and sell products in real-time to viewers through livestreaming. The company primarily focuses on the fashion and lifestyle segment, offering pre-owned luxury and designer brands. ShopShops' business model involves connecting retail brands with creators, referred to as hosts, who can represent and sell the brands' products through live video sessions.
The platform operates as a three-sided marketplace, facilitating the interaction between brands, hosts, and consumers. Brands can hire hosts on an hourly or event basis to showcase their products during live streams, providing a personalized shopping experience to viewers. This approach aims to bridge the gap between traditional retail and ecommerce by replicating an offline shopping experience online.
ShopShops initially launched in China in 2017 and observed consumer behavior similar to the early adoption phase of live shopping in that market. The company entered the US market in 2022, recognizing the growth potential as American consumers become more receptive to this shopping format. ShopShops anticipates that by 2024, major US brands will incorporate live streaming into their marketing strategies, following a similar trajectory to the adoption of platforms like TikTok.
While live shopping in the US is expected to be more segmented across vertical categories compared to China's more centralized platforms, ShopShops believes its focus on the female fashion and lifestyle vertical positions it well for success. The platform aims to expand into other verticals such as home and arts in the future.

ShopShops

Platforms for creating, scheduling, and managing a brand or independent seller’s social media presence. A number of these platforms also provide AI-powered social listening and data analytics tools to gauge customer sentiment.

AI-powered tools for automatically monitoring and responding to customer queries across multiple social media channels.

Platforms for identifying and managing influencers to promote and sell products and services through social media.

Tools typically used by influencers to demonstrate and sell products and services via social media. The solutions are the digital equivalents of live teleshopping programs.

Platforms for curating and displaying customer reviews, recommendations, and product and service feedback on a brand or independent sellers' social media pages and websites.

Tools to create and implement instant shopping features to an image or video advertisement

Increases transparency of the effectiveness of social commerce by providing solutions for attribution and measurement

Relevant for social chatbots segment that uses AI/ML to provide automated responses to customers

Creates virtual assets for Metaverse stores and marketing on metaverse platforms

Social media platforms such as Snap are developing AR solutions for live shopping experiences

Dash Hudson

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