Martech Startup mynfo Raises $6.8 Million

TAMPA, FL--(Marketwired - May 2, 2016) - mynfo, Inc., an innovative new media platform for marketers and consumers, announced today it has closed $6.8 million in Series A financing led by Almaz Capital. Ross Hangebrauck, Almaz Capital Managing Director, will join the mynfo board of directors. The mynfo platform will launch this year in two Top 25 media markets. Funds from the investment will be used to scale the platform to additional markets throughout the U.S.

"Marketers spend billions of dollars every year trying to understand and influence millions of consumers through advertising distributed on television, online and mobile networks. Yet an increasing number of those same consumers are choosing ad-free content," said Susan O'Neal Gear, mynfo's founder and CEO. "Consumers don't hate advertising; they dislike how the advertising is distributed."

The broadcast media model first introduced in the 1940's was an efficient way to create brand equity because consumers had fewer content choices. Today, technology has not only given consumers more choice about what content they consume; they can also choose whether or not advertising is going to be part of the experience. As a result, media models built on the over seventy year old concept of impressions have lost value both to marketers and consumers.

According to an April 2016 report by Accenture: 84% of digital consumers complain that advertising too frequently interrupts their content consumption; 40% plan to remove these interruptions either via paid subscription or ad blocking software in the next twelve months. Frustration is even higher among younger consumers. "Consumers don't want to be targets. They want and expect to be valued partners," explained Gear.

New mynfo Board Member Hangebrauck concurs adding, "We have been actively investing in entrepreneurs and startups that bring a unique competitive advantage to this sector. mynfo has identified and addressed an important need for consumers and marketers alike and developed a platform that will deliver real value to both."

Gear's passion for mynfo and its mission of transforming the consumer to marketer relationship is shared by her co-founders, former Quotient executive Shachar "Shock" Torem, serving as Chief Client Officer, and veteran startup technologist Marvin Scaff, serving as Chief Technology Officer.

About Mynfo
At mynfo, we believe that every moment of every life has value. Honoring that truth creates a unique opportunity for marketers and consumers to invest in mutually respectful and mutually beneficial connections with each other that increase in value over time. The mynfo platform makes these connections easy for consumers, scalable for marketers and valuable for both. Mynfo is headquartered in Tampa, Fla. Learn more about mynfo at http://mynfo.com.

About Almaz Capital
Founded in 2008, Almaz Capital invests in early stage, capital efficient technology companies. The team connects entrepreneurs and engineering talent in untapped emerging tech regions working in high-growth sectors such as enterprise and cloud computing, mobile, internet infrastructure and services, data storage and management and ecommerce. The following companies are among Almaz Capital's realized exits: nScaled acquired by Acronis in 2014; Vyatta, acquired by Brocade in 2012; Qik, acquired by Skype in 2011; and Yandex, IPO 2011. Current investments include: GridGain, funded along with Sberbank, MoneyTime Ventures and RTP Ventures; Sensity, funded with GE Ventures, Radar Partners and Mohr Davidow Ventures; Cinarra, funded with SoftBank Group and Cisco; GoodData, funded with Andreessen Horowitz and Intel Capital; Hover; Content Analytics; MakeTime; Starwind Software; CarPrice; and Petcube. For more information, please visit: www.almazcapital.com.