Guide
closedSoftware company transforming traditional web content into an audio-visual stream for curation and consumption on-the-go.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | investor investor | €0.0 | round |
| investor investor investor investor investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
| N/A | $1.5m | Seed | |
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Guide was a U.S.-based technology startup founded in Miami, Florida, in 2012 by Freddie A. Laker, who also served as the company's CEO. The venture was inspired by Laker's observation at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show that content for the burgeoning Smart TV market was not presented in a TV-friendly format. This led him to develop a platform to create a more engaging "TV experience." Laker, the son of famed airline entrepreneur Sir Freddie Laker, brought a background in digital marketing, having previously founded the agency iChameleon Group, which served clients like Coca-Cola and Toyota.
The company developed a visual newsreader application for mobile devices, personal computers, and Smart TVs. Its core technology transformed text-based content from online news sources, blogs, and social media feeds into video segments. The service utilized text-to-speech technology and animated avatars to serve as virtual news anchors, reading the articles aloud while incorporating images and videos from the source material. This process effectively turned written articles into brief, television-style news episodes. For each source, the app would generate a dedicated "channel," with individual articles appearing as distinct episodes.
In January 2013, Leslie Bradshaw joined the company as Chief Operating Officer. By February of that year, Guide had closed a seed funding round and launched a private alpha version of its app exclusively for the iPad. The following month, the company was selected as a finalist in the accelerator competition at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. The base application allowed users to select from three different virtual anchors, with plans to monetize by offering additional avatars and virtual newsroom backgrounds for purchase. The company ceased operations in 2014.
Keywords: text-to-video, news aggregation, content curation, text-to-speech, avatar technology, visual newsreader, digital media, mobile application, Smart TV application, Freddie Laker, Leslie Bradshaw, iChameleon Group, news summarization, automated video creation, content personalization, digital publishing, media technology, SXSW accelerator, video news app, content consumption