News Hub | News Direct

Communications

Advertising Communications Graphic Design Internet Marketing Media Publishing SEO
Article thumbnail News Release

Sharp App Joins HPL Digital Sport and Cardinal Sports Capital Accelerator Program After Year of Significant Growth

Sharp App

Sharp App, a sports betting app dedicated to the empowerment of bettors through AI-powered tools, analytics and educational programming, announced today its inclusion into the HPL Digital Sport and Cardinal Sports Capital Accelerator Program. The Accelerator Program has raised capital for Sharp App during the current 2022 NFL season to exponentially grow its subscriber base. Since its launch in August 2021, Sharp App has rapidly scaled its capabilities, expanded programming based on user demand and trends, and shown strong user growth, engagement and retention rates. Since 2021, Sharp App has: Held an 80% month-over-month premium subscriber retention rate Provided upgrades and scaled content for its Game Center, a centralized hub of news, trends, lines and betting information, and Sharp Academy, a multimedia masterclass that will teach all skill levels different aspects of sports betting, led by sports betting expert John Alessia Seen a 200% increase in daily and monthly active users in the first month of the 2022 NFL season Identified nearly half of all users engage on the Sharp App Discord add-on during NFL games “One of the most significant advances to our app is our extremely popular AI-powered props tool. In getting feedback from our users and understanding the data leveraged, we were able to quickly develop one of the most comprehensive prop tools to identify the value of player statistics across various markets,” said Sharp App co-founder and CEO Kevin Epstein. “With our inclusion into the Accelerator Program, we’ll be able to utilize the capabilities of both HPL Digital Sport and Cardinal Sports Capital to scale innovations, like our prop tool, faster and get our superior products and services in front of new investors, partners and potential users.” The vision behind the Accelerator Program is to help streamline a company’s access to essential tools needed for entrepreneurs to obtain capital, network in the right channels, effectively articulate their value proposition and get their products and services into the hands of the right audiences. “In today’s sports betting economy, capital is harder to raise. It’s more important than ever to not just have a vision, but a clear path for how the company will generate revenue and prove profitability,” said Ed Moed, CEO of HPL Digital Sport. “In a little over a year, Sharp App has shown its product provides exceptional service and value to its users through its stellar engagement and retention statistics. Sharp App is the exact type of company we built the company for and are looking forward to helping bring them to the next phase in their entrepreneurial journey.” For more information please visit: https://sharp.app/ To download the app: App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sharp-app/id1557592668 Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sharpapp ABOUT SHARP APP Founded in 2020, by sports betting and fantasy experts and executives from Win Daily and DFS Army, Sharp is a first-of-its-kind sports betting app. Sharp provides an all-in-one platform experience of multimedia content, tools and solutions developed specifically to educate and empower sports bettors to make smarter decisions and manage their actions. Follow Sharp on social media - Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Contact Details Michael Adorno +1 212-931-6143 madorno@hotpaperlantern.com Company Website https://sharp.app/

October 26, 2022 10:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Article thumbnail Digital Asset Direct

Does $BKYI Hold The Key To Identity Protection? 🗝 Interview With Michael DePasquale, Chairman & CEO

BIO-key International, Inc.

Contact Details Catalyst IR- William Jones, David Collins +1 212-924-9800 BKYI@catalyst-ir.com Company Website https://www.bio-key.com/

October 26, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Video
Article thumbnail News Release

WATI raises $23M series B funding round, powering WhatsApp for businesses

WATI

Over 2 billion people around the world use WhatsApp to communicate everyday things and it’s little wonder that businesses are taking to the messaging platform to support their customers where they feel most comfortable. Helping them supercharge this approach, customer and sales engagement tool WATI (which stands for ‘WhatsApp Team Inbox’) is today announcing a $23M series B funding round to scale the team and product and reach more businesses globally. The funding round was led by Tiger Global with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia, as well as new investors DST Global Partners and Shopify. This marks Shopify’s first venture investment in a startup operating in the Southeast Asia region. This series B comes hot on the heels of a $8.3M series A round 10 months ago; in total, WATI has raised over $35M since 2020. WATI enables companies to have scalable, yet personalised, conversations with an easy-to-use customer engagement software that is built on WhatsApp’s Business API. WATI’s vision is to help businesses meet their customers where they are – on messaging platforms – so they are always accessible, personalised, and can engage in real time. Through the WATI platform, SMBs can send personalised notifications from their system in a programmatic way through WATI’s API. They can also support their customers through a collaborative team inbox with multiple agents, smart routing, canned responses, data tagging, and analytics. Many of these interactions can be automated through low-code workflow builders and chatbots. Bianca Ho, Co-Founder at WATI, commented: “It’s been an exciting 2022 at WATI culminating with this new funding round. We doubled down on our product with more automations, making it a seamless digital tool and must-have for any business. We went vertical in our approach and created integrations and partnerships with Zoho, Shopify, Google Sheets among others to really help scale growth and sharpen the product. The team has grown, revenue and customer numbers have doubled and now we look to scale the business, operations, teams around the world.” This year, WATI has grown its remote-first team by 50%, attracting leaders from Twitter and Freshworks. Revenues and customer growth have doubled in the past 12 months as users find ROI in both time saved and increased revenue from automated workflows connected to eCommerce platforms and CRMs. WATI has over 6000 customers across 78 countries including SMBs providing domestic house cleaning services to schools, tutorial centres, medical institutions and ecommerce, Shopify stores and many more. Ken Yeun g, co-founder at WATI, added: “The business messaging market has grown enormously. Meta estimates that around a billion people per week communicate with a business or service account across WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. This insight is critical for what’s happening now and what’s coming ahead. About 40% of Meta’s advertisers globally - over 4 million businesses - use click-to-message ads, which redirect people from Facebook or Instagram into one of Meta’s messaging products to chat with a business. WATI is well placed to service this demand and beyond.” With additional funding, WATI will continually scale the team and invest in the product stack for low-code automation encouraging wider adoption of digital tools. WATI plans aggressive go-to-market plans in emerging markets, such as Latin America and Southeast Asia. Founders Bianca Ho and Ken Yeung started working together in 2016 with Clare.AI creating omni-channel AI digital assistants for large Asia enterprises. In 2020, they launched WATI to help SMB with a self-service, low code product on the WhatsApp Business API. Bianca has worked at Zendesk. Ken was a lead application developer for SaxoTraderGO, a cloud based trading platform that offered clients access to 37 stock exchanges. About WATI Founded in 2020 in Hong Kong, WATI helps companies have personalised conversations with customers at scale with an easy-to-use customer engagement software that’s built on WhatApp’s Business API. For further information visit: https://www.wati.io/ About Tiger Global Management Tiger Global Management, LLC is an investment firm focused on private and public companies in the internet, software, and financial technology sectors. Since 2001, Tiger Global has invested in hundreds of companies across more than 30 countries, including investments ranging from Series A to post-IPO. The firm aims to partner with dynamic entrepreneurs operating market-leading companies in its core focus areas. Tiger Global's investments have included JD.com, UiPath, Stripe, Databricks, Bytedance, Snowflake, Facebook, Alibaba, Procore, Chime, Blend, Peloton, Attentive, LinkedIn, Flipkart, and Toast. Contact Details WATI Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://www.wati.io/

October 26, 2022 07:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Image
Article thumbnail News Release

Public Relations Global Network Expands Asia-Pacific Presence with Addition of New Zealand Agency Alexander PR

Public Relations Global Network

Following its 2022 Asia Summit Conference and Fall Member Meeting in Singapore, the Public Relations Global Network (PRGN) announced today it has added New Zealand-based Alexander PR Ltd. to its global network, enhancing its ability to serve clients throughout the world. Following the addition of five new member agencies earlier this year, the latest move marks the 30 th anniversary of the global agency network, further expanding its presence in the burgeoning Asia-Pacific region. The addition raises the number of member agencies in the network to 53 and adds local PR and communications expertise in the southwest Pacific area from Alexander PR’s office in Auckland, New Zealand. The newest PRGN member, Alexander PR, is a full-service public relations agency specializing in reputation management. The firm assists boards, CEOs, business owners and marketing decision makers with reputation, strategy, content and commercial opportunities. “New Zealand’s Alexander PR is a global leader in public relations,” said PRGN President David Fuscus. “Under the leadership of Kate and Dwayne Alexander, the firm serves a stellar client base with innovative and pioneering communications. The Public Relations Global Network is proud to welcome Alexander PR as the 53 rd member of the world’s leading public relations network.” “Joining the global PRGN family is a significant milestone for us and one that we know will benefit both our team and clients,” said Kate Alexander, co-founder of Alexander PR. “We pride ourselves on client service and results within a collaborative, supportive company culture, all of which is rewarded by longevity and tenure – a number of clients and staff have been with us for more than 15 years. Having established a reputation for award-winning work in New Zealand and internationally, we are greatly looking forward to expanding our global footprint and working with like-minded peers in the Public Relations Global Network.” In addition to joining PRGN, Alexander PR added another three accolades to its 11 international awards at the SABRE Awards Asia-Pacific 2022 held in Singapore earlier this month, including the coveted Diamond SABRE Award – CEO of the Year (Rhiannon McKinnon) – Addressing gender equity through financial wellbeing – Kiwi Wealth with Alexander PR; Geographic – Global (led out of Asia-Pacific with work in other regions) – Changing the world with the 4 Day Week – 4 Day Week Global with Alexander PR; and Best Micro Asia-Pacific Agency to work for – Alexander PR. Founded in 2005, the team led by experienced communication veterans Kate and Dwayne Alexander, Alexander PR is best known locally for its strategic crisis, issues and reputation management as well as for numerous national and international campaigns. Among its most notable clients, alongside 4 Day Week Global, Kiwi Wealth, and HERA, are trustee company and philanthropy management leader Perpetual Guardian, life insurer Partners Life, property data and analytics provider CoreLogic New Zealand, accommodation group Sudima Hotels, multinational energy and automation digital solutions specialist Schneider Electric New Zealand, Crimson Education, Cambridge Assessment International Education and a dozen other global stock exchange listed firms. About the Public Relations Global Network Founded in 1992 by a group of visionary public relations leaders, with approximately 1,000 professionals in 62 locations, PRGN is one of the world’s largest international public relations networks.PRGN partners are independent, local, owner-operated public relations and marketing communications firms that share expertise and resources, while providing broad-based comprehensive communications strategies to clients worldwide.Companies or organizations interested in the services of PRGN’s local agency network can visit the Agency Directory or contact PRGN’s executive director Gábor Jelinek at gabor.jelinek@prgn.com for more information.Independent agencies interested in joining the network can visit the member recruitment section of the PRGN website for more information or email its membership chair, David Wills, Senior Vice President of Media Profile, at david.wills@mediaprofile.com About Alexander PR Alexander PR and The Content Place assist boards, CEOs, business owners and marketing decision makers with reputation, strategy, content and commercial opportunities. We are a New Zealand-based, full-service public relations agency with global reach, specialising in reputation management. Having established a record of high performance and market-leading results in a global landscape, Alexander PR combines traditional public relations expertise with forward-thinking digital marketing and content creation strategy to help clients achieve their bottom-line objectives. We specialise in building media relationships and achieving results in earned, owned, and sponsored media to enhance our clients’ reputations. With a sound understanding of what makes a business tick, the team at Alexander PR brings its specialist knowledge and profile-building experience to the partnership to achieve real, measurable outcomes for clients. Whether it is quality media coverage, brand positioning or ad-hoc crisis communication you need, the team has the know-how and expertise required. For more information on the services we offer, refer to our services page. The Alexander PR team provides comprehensive 24/7 crisis and issues management services and expertise. Our professionalism, relationships with media and industry experts, confidential support, and years of experience in crisis management across all sectors are the tools we use to protect clients, their reputations, and their businesses. Learn more at https://companycrisis.co.nz/ Our comprehensive services include specialist content marketing curator The Content Place, a separate division of Alexander PR and a full-service content marketing and book publishing provider which supports clients’ objectives for achieving targeted media wins in their desired channels and platforms. The Content Place provides access to the best business, tech, financial and consumer writers, videographers and photographers in New Zealand. We have built relationships with these quality people over many years and can help you create, share your story, and achieve business outcomes. We are your content marketing place. Learn more at https://alexanderpr.co.nz/the-content-place Contact Details Public Relations Global Network (PRGN) Gabor Jelinek +36 30 162 8910 gabor.jelinek@prgn.com Company Website https://prgn.com

October 24, 2022 09:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Article thumbnail News Release

HoneyQuote and The Zebra Partner to Offer More Homeowners Insurance Options in Florida

HoneyQuote

HoneyQuote, a Florida-based digital insurance agency, has entered into a strategic distribution partnership with The Zebra, a leading insurance comparison site based in Austin, Texas. This partnership will provide consumers more options to obtain homeowners insurance in Florida, one of the costliest and most arduous insurance markets. “We’re thrilled to be partnering with The Zebra, a category-defining company in our industry, in transforming how difficult-to-place risks in our home state of Florida are bought and sold,” said Freddy Seikaly, Head of Partnerships at HoneyQuote. Collectively with The Zebra, HoneyQuote will continue to scale rapidly across Florida as they offer the quickest quote-to-bind solution in the state, representing national, insurtech, and regional carriers - many of which they have brought online for the first time. “Florida homeowners face immense challenges to secure appropriate and adequate property insurance for their needs,” said Scott Montgomery, Director of Business Development at The Zebra. “Our partnership with HoneyQuote is an exciting opportunity to expand and help more people seamlessly get the coverage they need from top carriers.” The Zebra launched its homeowners insurance product in December 2019 and has been a resource in advising Florida residents to navigate and understand the rapidly changing homeowners insurance environment. The Zebra is proud to work with the leading national and regional homeowners insurance carriers and offer a variety of coverage options to property owners in Florida. About HoneyQuote HoneyQuote is a digital insurance agency powered by a proprietary search engine allowing clients to compare and purchase insurance coverage in an online marketplace. HoneyQuote’s products include homeowners and flood insurance across 30 of the top insurance carriers. For more information, visit honeyquote.com. About The Zebra The Zebra is the nation’s leading independent insurance comparison site. With its dynamic, real-time quote comparison tool, consumers can identify insurance companies with the coverage, service level, and pricing to suit their unique needs. The Zebra compares multiple insurance companies and provides agent support and educational resources to ensure consumers are equipped to make the most informed decisions about their home and auto insurance. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, The Zebra has sought to bring transparency and simplicity to insurance shopping since 2012 -- it’s “insurance in black and white.” For more information, visit thezebra.com. Contact Details David PR Group John P. David +1 305-724-3903 john@davidpr.com

October 24, 2022 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Article thumbnail Digital Asset Direct

NASDAQ: $SOPA Seeks to Strengthen Their Ecosystem 💪 Interview With Indonesia's GM, Patrick Soetanto

Society Pass Incorporated

Contact Details Dennis Nguyen: Founder, Chairman & CEO +1 877-440-9464 dennis@thesocietypass.com Company Website https://thesocietypass.com

October 21, 2022 12:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Video
Article thumbnail News Release

VideoXRM Gets Your B2B Video Found

VideoXRM

VideoXRM, a B2B content distribution and discovery platform, launched its beta site today with a commercial launch slated for January 2023. VideoXRM merges the superior communications power of rich media with granular searchability to bring global exposure to video and rich media assets. VideoXRM is the launch brand and new corporate name for this cloud-hosted platform developed over two and a half years as Issuer Pixel. VideoXRM is a scalable media discovery platform leveraging proprietary indexing structures, industry taxonomies and search engine technology that lets content providers upload and individually index their rich media assets to be easily found. Industry Problem – B2B video is hard to find with precise results, which limits its value and potential. It’s either siloed on millions of corporate websites or buried on consumer video portals. Irrelevant results from conventional text searches create frustration rather than solutions. 59% of executives prefer video to reading text. 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool. 82% of consumer internet traffic will be video by 2022 Global corporate video investments exceed $20K per company, per year - but these assets are hard to locate. Solution – VideoXRM’s patent-pending technology uses highly sophisticated indexing and search technology to make unstructured video content easily discoverable with precision. This new ecosystem delivers huge value to searchers and content providers as businesses increasingly tap the power of video and rich media to differentiate their value and to reach new audiences. The platform is ideal for company-to-company and company-to-customer engagement, news media, researchers, supply chain and procurement managers, M&A sourcing, partnering and benchmarking. VideoXRM has the “Last Mover” advantage in the video and audio sharing industry, bringing structure, searchability, distribution and intelligence to rich media investments. About VideoXRM ( VideoXRM.com ) VideoXRM is a global, searchable video and audio sharing and networking platform connecting corporate rich media content with all potential stakeholders. The platform and smart search technology creates value and knowledge from mountains of unstructured digital media, delivering greater ROI from content investments. VideoXRM’s mission is harnessing the enhanced communicative power of rich media through a new distribution and discovery paradigm. VideoXRM was Co-founded by David N. Baker, who formed Revere Data LLC (Sectorbase) which was acquired by FactSet Data Systems, Inc. His Co-founders are Vadim A. Tarasov, Byron Kwok and David Guzy. Contact Details Catalyst IR David Collins +1 212-924-9800 VideoXRM@Catalyst-IR.com Company Website https://videoxrm.com

October 20, 2022 02:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Image
Article thumbnail News Release

CloudWerx Announces Infrastructure Services Specialization in Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program

Cloudwerx

CloudWerx, a full-service enterprise cloud consulting firm, announced today that it has achieved the Infrastructure Services Specialization in the Google Cloud Partner Advantage program. A Google Cloud Premier Resell and Service Partner and a fast-growing North American partner, this specialization proves CloudWerx’s expertise in building customer infrastructure and workflows on Google Cloud. Google Cloud Partner Advantage provides organizations with qualified partners that have certified experience in successfully delivering Google Cloud solutions. Organizations that have achieved the Infrastructure Services Specialization — the highest technical designation a partner can earn — have demonstrated technical proficiency, industry expertise, and proven success using Google Cloud infrastructure solutions and services. “We are excited to be aligned with the open source, open community culture at Google Cloud,” said Jason Geis, Co-Founder and CEO of CloudWerx. “Our Digital Native customers that want to take advantage of the open source community and best-of-breed security are migrating to Google Cloud.” “Google Cloud specializations highlight the proficiency required to deliver technical competencies and support to customers,” said Derrick Thompson, Global Head of Partner Differentiation, Google Cloud. “Achieving this specialization is evidence of CloudWerx’s commitment to providing customers with the expertise they need to build and modernize their infrastructure workloads on Google Cloud.” CloudWerx chose to be an exclusive resell and service partner of Google Cloud because of the innovation, customization, collaboration, and flexibility Google Cloud offers its customers when it comes to building optimized and secure cloud infrastructures. To learn more about CloudWerx’s Google Cloud Infrastructure deployment process, please visit cloudwerx.tech/infrastructure. About CloudWerx CloudWerx is an engineering-focused cloud consulting company that provides the most elite technology resources to solve the toughest challenges. Maintaining 100 percent customer retention and a commitment to 11/10 technical, account and customer service, the CloudWerx team has unique experience working in some of the most complex cloud environments at scale and can help your business accelerate with confidence. Please visit https://www.cloudwerx.tech/ to learn more. Contact Details CloudWerx Betsy Reed +1 206-999-3517 press@cloudwerx.tech Company Website https://www.cloudwerx.tech/

October 20, 2022 11:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time

Article thumbnail News Release

Adventure Together Industry Event Wraps with a Record Attendance and Inspiring Discussions from 37 International Speakers

TourRadar

TourRadar, the Adventure Booking Platform that offers more than 50,000+ multi-day organized adventures across the globe from 2,500+ reputable and niche operators, hosted its second annual Adventure Together event which was a hybrid, held both online and in Vienna, Austria Oct. 18-19, 2022. Furthermore, the company announced increasing travel advisor commissions to up to 12 percent for bookings for the rest of 2022. With more than 2,100 people in attendance, the event brought together thought leaders and practitioners in multi-day touring including travel agents and agencies, tour operators and suppliers, influencers, OTA, and airlines, to provide inspiration, education, and insights into the technology and trends that shape the industry. Sessions covered subjects ranging from marketing, sustainability, distribution, and technology, to indigenous and inclusive tourism. The event theme ‘‘Now What?’ kept topics focused on what adventure travel and multi-day tours will look like in the future and how to plan for success. “Adventure Together gathered industry leaders together for much-needed discussions around the trends and opportunities for organized adventures and group travel in today’s global landscape,” said Travis Pittman, CEO, and Co-founder of TourRadar. “We recognized that there wasn’t a single global event or conference dedicated to the multi-day tour industry with a focus on technology, so we created one.” In his opening keynote, Pittman announced the company is raising commissions on its Agent Marketplace for both new and current travel advisors from up to 8 percent to up to 12 percent until the end of 2022. Agent Marketplace launched in November 2021, and now has more than 3,500 advisors. Pittman told attendees that since the company launched it has had 100 million travelers visit the platform, who have booked more than half a billion dollars in travel, experiencing 4 million days of adventures. Pittman revealed his three predictions for What’s Next; 1. trust, payments & financial technology products will be more critical and top of mind than ever, 2. data-driven storytelling will highlight and drive community impact and sustainability, and 3. digital distribution & tooling will come of age in the multi-day adventure market. In the session Targeting Net Zero – How Is the Multi-Day Tours Industry Responding to the Climate Crisis? Michael Edwards, CEO of Explore! shared insights on their comprehensive carbon-reducing strategy and Nadine Pino shared how The Travel Corporation is collaborating with destinations to build a shared agenda for climate action. Moderator Graeme Jackson, Head of Strategic Partnerships at the Travel Foundation, and one of the co-authors of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism reinforced the need for travel businesses and destinations to make a commitment publicly and set a deadline for action. The panel also addressed the need to move beyond measurement and offsetting and to start looking at all strategic business decisions through a climate lens. In the Adventuring through Data session, Sher Khan, Industry Lead at Google, and Lia Costa, Analytics Lead at TourRadar discussed how a post-pandemic world brought on different user behaviors and unveiled new travel trends. The two shared data about search terms and shorter booking windows. Costa indicated that 42 percent of TourRadar sales were booked less than 2 months in advance and that Google search volume for multi-day tour & adventure-specific terms increased 44 percent YoY. In addition, Costa reported that the top 10 destinations for summer 2022 TourRadar bookings were all in Europe with Italy, France, England, German, and Switzerland taking the top 5 slots. A panel on Responsible and Sustainable Indigenous Tourism included Anniina Sandberg, Founder of Visit Natives, Sebastien Desnoyers-Picard, Vice President of Operators of the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada (ITAC), and Aurélie Debusschère a Europe agent for World Indigenous Tourism Alliance. Together, they discussed how the travel trade can make indigenous tourism more responsible by ensuring that businesses are working with majority-owned, operated, and/or managed indigenous people. The panel suggested operators directly engage indigenous people, their elders, and the community to ensure they share the right experiences and content. They also encouraged operators to ensure communities are benefiting from tourism. TourRadar also announced its new brand positioning ‘Adventure Begins Here’ which came from months of consumer and industry research and collaboration with agency partner Park & Battery. TourRadar, the Adventure Booking Platform, helps people seize and savor every opportunity global travel has to offer. “TourRadar has built considerable bonds with its customers but there is an opportunity to form a deeper connection, said Pittman. “The range of options TourRadar provides in the multi-day sector gives us a differentiator that no one else can own.” The announcement, film, and all sessions from the event were recorded and can be found here. About TourRadar TourRadar is the world’s first Adventure Booking Platform, where you can effortlessly book private, group, and tailor-made multi-day organized adventures from 160+ countries worldwide. Founded in 2010, TourRadar was the first to transition multi-day tours to an online marketplace, making them the global leader in the industry today. In 2021, TourRadar further revolutionized the industry by introducing the Adventure Booking Platform, connecting travelers, operators, and travel agents to organized tours through one, easy-to-use platform. www.tourradar.com Contact Details TourRadar Lisa Verbeck +1 310-254-0039 press@tourradar.com Company Website https://www.tourradar.com/

October 20, 2022 12:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Image
1 ... 171172173174175 ... 334