Faculte bags $2.7M for rich media presentations-made-easy

Faculte, provider of a simple platform for making multimedia presentations, online videos and pre-recorded webinars, has raised $2.66 million in a first round of preferred stock, according to regulatory filings. The San Bruno, Calif. company says Calumet Venture Fund and a handful of angel investors provided the round.

Combining the capabilities of competing companies like Animoto, Toufee, GoToMeeting and SlideRocket, Faculte offers its users a suite of web-based “broadcast studio” tools. For example, it lets companies add branding and interactive features to its videos, including password protection, and registration forms to capture leads and provide payments through PayPal. More casual users can upload and elaborate upon existing PowerPoint presentations. For example, they can draw on top of or annotate slides and rearrange them in different configurations to enhance their points.

Faculte’s webinar tools seek to take the timing element out of the equation. Noting that many companies struggle to schedule webinars that are then poorly attended, the company provides a platform to pre-record these presentations, including slides, videos, screen captures and audio. That way they can be distributed via email or link and viewed on demand.

In addition to storing all past projects in an online library, Faculte also keeps tabs on presentations in the field, providing its users with updated viewership and performance data. This gives them a sense of how successful different distribution channels have been in the past. Videos and presentations can be embedded in a variety of formats including widgets, blogs, social networks, email newsletters and more.

With its product still in beta, the company says it makes money by selling businesses subscription licenses to its technology. It also takes a little off the top of transactions brokered through its platform. For example, if someone buys a product demonstrated in a video made with Faculte that includes a direct payment form, the company gets a percentage.

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