Rembrand Rakes In $7 Million Seed Funding

<p><strong><span class&equals;"legendSpanClass"><span class&equals;"xn-location">LOS ALTOS <&sol;span><&sol;span><&sol;strong>&&num;8211&semi; Rembrand&comma; an AI product placement platform that embeds photo-realistic products into digital videos&comma; has raised an <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;8 million<&sol;span> seed round for the upcoming launch of its beta platform&period; The round was led by venture capital firms and strategic funds&comma; including Greycroft and UTA&period;VC&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rembrand enables creators to effortlessly incorporate sponsored products into their videos&comma; thereby reducing costs&comma; speeding up production timelines&comma; and increasing monetization opportunities&period; The beta platform opened up on <span class&equals;"xn-chron">February 6&comma; 2023<&sol;span>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rembrand envisions a future where digital video monetization is non-intrusive to the consumer&period; Currently&comma; the product placement industry is worth <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;23 Billion<&sol;span> and is native to movies and television&comma; often done manually with a character using the brand&&num;8217&semi;s vehicle&comma; attire&comma; beverage&comma; etc&period; Rembrand uses AI to automate the placement of high-quality virtual products into video assets&comma; not only for movies and television&comma; but also for the universe of online creators that dominate today&&num;8217&semi;s consumer viewing habits&period; With Rembrand&comma; any video asset can be seamlessly enhanced with AI generated products that match the scene&period; This allows viewers to enjoy uninterrupted videos&comma; while brands have the opportunity to be part of the story rather than an interruption&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>According to CEO <span class&equals;"xn-person">Omar Tawakol<&sol;span>&comma; who was previously the founder and CEO of Bluekai &lpar;a marketing data platform acquired by Oracle in 2014&rpar; and also the founder and CEO of Voicea &lpar;a conversational AI company acquired by Cisco in 2019&rpar;&comma; &&num;8220&semi;Consumers are skipping ads at an alarming rate&period; IPG reports that up to 65&percnt; of commercials are skipped&period; Consumers don&&num;8217&semi;t like interruptions&comma; and advertisers are searching for a more effective way to get noticed in video&period; With the explosive growth of online video and streaming&comma; the traditional model of selling advertising in video is ripe for disruption&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Product placement is a fantastic way to break through the clutter and get your brand in front of consumers&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s a manual process that requires big budgets&period; We see an opportunity to enable scalable&comma; post-production product placement that meets the needs of today&&num;8217&semi;s creators&comma;&&num;8221&semi; says Tawakol&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Rembrand is launching it&&num;8217&semi;s beta with a number of leading influencers&period;  &&num;8220&semi;Content creators move quickly and it&&num;8217&semi;s about time that sponsors catch up&period; Currently it can take weeks and multiple back-and-forths for just one sponsored integration to be approved&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said <span class&equals;"xn-person">Alexandra Botez<&sol;span> of BotezLive&comma; a leading YouTuber and Twitch influencer focused on chess&period; &&num;8220&semi;Rembrand will help drastically speed up this process on top of providing new monetization opportunities&period; I can&&num;8217&semi;t wait to try it out&excl;&&num;8221&semi;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We believe Rembrand has the tech and team in place to quickly address a significant gap in the product placement marketplace with a solution geared toward content creators and streaming platforms&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said <span class&equals;"xn-person">Dana Settle<&sol;span>&comma; Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner at Greycroft&period; &&num;8220&semi;Omar and his founding team have a track record of success to build what we envision is a category-defining company&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;