TrendKite co-founder Matt Allison is reuniting the core of his former team as the foundation for his new startup.
Allison's new company, Handraise Inc., operates in nearly the same public relations and media space as TrendKite did.
But there's a significant difference.
TrendKite, which sold to PR giant Cision for $225 million in 2019, helped analyze readership after a news announcement had been made. Handraise, meanwhile, uses new AI capabilities to help companies target ideal audiences and boost earned media on the front end by amplifying the highest-quality news coverage of an announcement to curated audiences across social media channels.
"At TrendKite, we really only measured historical performance of press coverage," he said. "We viewed it as the holy grail if we could actually help brands increase their business impact, rather than just measure it. When we started looking at ways that we could do that a TrendKite, probably back in 2018, the technology that was out there just really wasn't a good fit for us to be able to do that effectively."
With the recent advent of generative AI and large language models, Allison saw new opportunity. Handraise uses OpenAI's API, as well as Google's Bard API to help brands find relevant coverage. It plans to expand the algorithms to build out audiences based on the content, as well as recommend creative ad copy for a paid ad and follow up with in-depth analytics.
Its primary customers are PR agencies and B2B brands – basically anyone interested in boosting the impact of media coverage.
The platform also benefits news publishers because it channels those who view the paid earned media ads back to the original articles.
"With our campaigns we actually think we're providing a really great ecosystem between the brand, the journalists and the publication where when we amplify these stories, we drive the traffic back to the publication," Allison said.
Local venture capitalists, including some who helped back TrendKite, are throwing their financial weight behind the new concept. Handraise today announced it has raised $6.4M in funding. Investors included Silverton Partners, Floodgate, Bill Wood Ventures, Firebrand VC, Aperiam Ventures, Active Capital, Sputnik ATX VC and Capital Factory.
"I would definitely agree that the funding environment right now is very difficult and brutal from what I've heard from most of my friends that have raised money or that have tried to raise money," Allison said.
With a major exit under his belt, Allison said he was able to quickly draw interest from VCs and raise an oversubscribed round.
Handraise currently has seven employees, including several former TrendKiters, such as Chief Technical Officer David Perdue, Chief Marketing Officer Russ Somers and Head of Customer Success Nathan Walker.
"[At TrendKite] we were able to assemble a very, very unique, highly passionate, highly caring group of individuals, and we were able to create a really special culture," he said. "I think it's extremely exciting that so many of those folks do want to get back together and work with us." Learn more about TrendKite's culture and office layout here.
Now, the company, which has a 2,000-square-foot office at 1135 W. Sixth St., is focused on hiring several engineers, including front-end and full-stack developers, to help it continue building its subscription- and credit-based platform.
"We're really focused on building something special and pretty legendary in Austin," Allison said. "And not just in Austin. We think this is going to be something that brands all over the world get a ton of value out of, very quickly."
