Vyrill, winner of the TC Early Stage pitch-off, helps brands discover and leverage user-generated video reviews

Vyrill helps brands discover and leverage video reviews created by authentic customers and users. The company presented its product at TechCrunch Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising, where it beat out nine other companies, winning the pitch-off. The judges were impressed with Vyrill’s novel approach and innovative technology around discovering and filtering relevant videos.

This is a struggle for companies of every size. User-generated content is highly sought after as its authenticity is often apparent and therefore powerful. But the challenge is finding the ideal video quickly and efficiently. Right now, that usually involves searching for a video based on its title and then screening the entire video — a process that’s haphazard and labor-intensive.

As Vyrill’s CEO Ajay Bam stressed during his presentation, brands increasingly turn to ordinary people for video advertising. Instead of slick marketing videos, brands are more often licensing and marketing content created by real-life product users. But discovery is challenging and the search tools built into video platforms only parse the text in the title and description. Vyrill claims to have the solution. For example, with Vyrill’s technology, L’Oreal can match millions of YouTube videos to their entire product catalog, organizing each video to the appropriate product category. This enables L’Oreal to identify and utilize the best user-generated videos for the company’s marketing purposes. In addition, with Vyrill’s system, L’Oreal can dig down and identify user-generated content specific to a particular product.

Vyrill’s system analyzes the videos and parses the video’s text, audio, and images against a handful of filters, including diversity, subject matter, engagement, and more. According to Vyrill, this system is the secret sauce, enabling brands to discover the best videos quickly. The system also helps brands connect with the content creators by displaying profiles and email addresses.

CEO Ajay Bam said during his presentation the company currently has 40 companies on its platform, and it’s doubling month over month. Bam and co-founder and CTO Dr. Barbara Rosario started the company in 2015 and raised a $2.1 million pre-seed round in 2018. The company is currently fundraising a seed round with $1.2 million already raised.

Watch Vyrill’s pitch-off presentation here.