Koozoo
Koozoo enables users to share informative live views of places and events in their communities and around the world.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
$2.5m | Seed | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Koozoo, founded in 2010 by Ognjen Sami and later led by CEO Drew Sechrist, was a San Francisco-based company that operated in the social video sharing space. The company's objective was to create a video-based equivalent of Google Street View by crowdsourcing live video feeds of public places. The concept originated from co-founder Drew Sechrist's desire to view a live feed of his home while traveling without a dedicated monitoring system.
Koozoo developed a mobile application that allowed users to repurpose old smartphones into public-facing video cameras. Users could set up a spare smartphone to stream a view from their window, which could then be accessed on-demand by others through the Koozoo platform. This service aimed to provide real-time, location-based visual information, such as the crowd level at a coffee shop or weather conditions across town. The business model was centered on creating a network of user-generated, live video streams to provide hyperlocal, real-time information. While the primary service was user-facing, the company also considered aggregating data for brands.
In December 2012, Koozoo secured $2.5 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates and Tugboat Ventures, with participation from other angel investors. This capital was intended to expand its engineering team ahead of a planned public launch in 2013. Despite its initial funding and concept, the company is now listed as deadpooled.
Keywords: video sharing app, crowdsourced video, live video feeds, public webcams, location-based video, social video platform, real-time information, smartphone repurposing, hyperlocal data, Ognjen Sami, Drew Sechrist, New Enterprise Associates, Tugboat Ventures, video streaming network