New app from Steam Sage helps companies and creators monetize blog, video and livestreamed content with an instant shopping experience
Steam Sage is helping to merge the online shopping and entertainment experience by allowing instant on-page, add-to-cart and checkout functions to video, streaming, blog and website content.
“We are helping companies take their existing content – videos, blog posts and livestreams – and transform it into seamless conversion opportunities. As a result, the users in their community get a better experience, and the content creator gets more revenue and engagement from their work. It’s a win-win.” said co-founder Wilson Hunter.
The company recently raised $1.9 million, led by Innovation Nest and Acrobator VC in the EU and several strategic investors in the US. They are coming out of stealth mode after building the first version of the platform with clients worldwide.
This is just the beginning for the International team based on three continents. Other integrations are already in development, along with additional user engagement features such as subscriptions, live polling and livestream event ticketing.
Read More: Firefly Announces The Hiring Of Industry Veteran Anne Kolbo
Founders Wilson Hunter and Blazej Wojtyla are veterans of blending tech and commerce for superior outcomes. With previous clients including Hasbro and Universal Music, they most recently created and scaled interactive video streaming apps with over 20,000 active content streamers, 700,000 monthly active users, and peaked at over 1,000,000 users during a single live event.
Stream Sage builds on their experience and expertise in live commerce.
Mike Reiner of Acrobator VC is enthusiastic about the opportunities and the talent he sees. “We invested in Stream Sage because of the clear trends in live commerce and, more importantly, because of the technical capabilities of the team at Stream Sage for harnessing data to optimize livestream experiences. They have already built a very sophisticated platform for a seed-stage startup and have big plans for the industry. We believe they can become the data enabler of a new generation of live shopping.”
Read More: SalesTechStar Interview with Mark Simon, Vice President, Strategy at Celigo
Stream Sage has also received a generous grant for Data Science Research and Development which they have deployed to put together a robust data science team. This grant has already started to pay off through hundreds of paying subscribers using one of the Stream Sage APIs.
James Hsu, Steam Sage’s Data Science Lead and former product team leader with Amazon’s China Mobile Shopping Experience and Microsoft’s Cortana Mobile, said: “We are building a data-driven customer-centric experience with a strong team that’s willing to roll up their sleeves to get the job done. This is truly one of the best groups I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and I’m excited to help our customers succeed.”
The sky is the limit for this trio of tech-savvy entrepreneurs. Current clients already boast over $50M in annual gross revenues. Led by China, the global live commerce market exceeded $400B in 2021 and is expected to top $1T in 2023. Stream Sage is poised to claim a piece of the future of ecommerce.