Vydia Raises $7 Million “Series A” Round and Plans to Bring More Jobs to New Jersey

[While we take a much-needed break, we are rerunning our most popular posts. This was originally published in February 2018.]

Bell Works-based startup Vydia (Holmdel) closed a $7 million Series A round of fundraising on February 15. The investment was led by Vocap Investment Partners (Atlanta) and included participation from Newark Venture Partners.

Vydia began its life as a digital platform that helped musicians monetize and manage their online video content in one place.

“Content creators are leveraging the power of video across every social platform available; however, their insights and control over their own intellectual property are limited. Vydia is empowering creators by solving this problem with a smart, universal application,” said Roy LaManna, cofounder and CEO of Vydia, in a statement.

“We are committed to building the tools our creators around the world rely on to power and protect their content, and with this investment, we will have new resources to expand and improve our proprietary technology both for individual creators and content focused brands.”

“Vydia is currently working with top publishers like YouTube, Vevo, Facebook and Instagram, but now will have the bandwidth to invest in specific business development initiatives to deepen these relationships,”  a spokesperson told NJTechWeekly.com in an email.

The startup now has more than 200,000 content users that create, distribute, monetize, store, protect and measure their content on Vydia’s platform.

Creating 20 New Jobs

Vydia will use this investment to create 20 New Jersey-based jobs, thus keeping some local talent employed in their home state at one of the fastest-growing companies in America, LaManna noted in the email.

Many of the positions will be senior, leadership and/or technical in engineering, sales, product, marketing and data. Reiterating his desire to offer talented New Jersey citizens a way to avoid the commute to New York, LaManna added that there will be no need for employees to commute outside New Jersey to secure a challenging job at an industry-leading company.  

Vydia plans to institutionalize and ramp up sales; expand product and feature sets; and further integrate into additional video, audio and social platforms, the company said. In addition, Vydia will double down on its machine-learning capabilities to provide creators with intuitive and actionable feedback.

Vocap Managing Partners have New Jersey Roots

NJTechWeekly.com asked how Vydia had found its new funding partner, Vocap. Responding via email,  a spokesperson said, “Vocap was looking for fast-growing tech or media companies in the NJ/NY region that provide a universal solution to solve problems in a particular industry vertical. After several rounds of conversation, they were impressed with Vydia’s technology and growth.

“In addition, Vydia’s location at central jersey’s historically notable building for innovation, Bell Works, provides an edge to attract technology job candidates locally and within the NJ region, making it more cost-efficient to scale the company than its Silicon Valley and NYC peers.”

LaManna added, “I liked that LP Patrick Welsh and Managing Partner Mike Becker are N.J. natives. They took the time to get to know our business, understood the market opportunity, and recognized both the challenges and benefits we face building Vydia in N.J.”

As a result of this round, Vinny Olmstead, cofounder, partner and managing director of Vocap, will be joining Vydia’s board of directors, bringing with him a deep set of operating and strategic expertise.

Category Leader in Video Content Market

“Vydia has a significant head start as the category leader in the rapidly expanding video content market,” said Olmstead in a release. “The proliferation of serious content creators coupled with the disruption driven by social media as a distribution channel has created the need for a new kind of technology solution. Vydia had the foresight to recognize and act on this opportunity and is now leading the way with a software solution that is simple and elegant for both creators and companies that manage content creators.”

Building upon its initial focus at the intersection of music and video, Vydia will be expanding into additional content verticals. “Previously, laser-focused on video, the Vydia application can now support audio content. Vydia users-base is expanding from primarily musicians to a wide variety of video creators, as well as content-creating brands,”  a spokesman said. 

“At our core, we remain a video-focused tech company but we will always continue to evolve and expand with our users to support the various types of media they are publishing and protecting online,” LaManna added.

Vydia recently achieved some recognition, including its making the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing companies in America and Entrepreneur’s list of the 360 best entrepreneurial companies in America. 

Earlier investors include the Paradigm Talent Agency (New York), S-Curve Records (New York), QueensBridge Venture Partners (Los Angeles, Calif.), Dovi Frances (Los Angeles, Calif.), Ozone Management (Cape Town, South Africa) and other “industry insiders,” the company said.

For more information on  Vocap’s investment in Vydia please read Vocap’s White Hat / Black Hat blog post “Finally, a Solution That Puts Creators in the Driver’s Seat.”