• Wicket Labs Raises $2.8 Million for Video Insights Platform

    Wicket Labs, whose platform provides audience insights for subscription video services, has raised a $2.8 million round, led by WestRiver Group. Existing investors Madrona Ventura group and Divergent Ventures also participated. Wicket Labs was co-founded by Marty Roberts and Ian Blaine, previously executives at thePlatform, which was one of the industry’s first online video platforms, and was acquired by Comcast in 2006.

    Wicket Labs has evolved from its roots monitoring API issues to offer a variety of business intelligence and insights to help subscription video providers extend audience lifetime value. The company’s Wicket Scorecard provides data on customer acquisition costs, ARPU, effectiveness of marketing sources, results of new initiatives, details on usage (including content watched, time spent, devices used, etc.) and more.

    Key insights are compiled into what Wicket calls a Customer Happiness Index or CHI score, which is based on machine learning analysis of 4 categories of data (loyalty, content, activity and experience) to create churn predictions at the individual subscriber level. Wicket has shown there’s a direct relationship between the CHI score and the likelihood of churn. Armed with this data, subscription video providers can take targeted actions to reduce churn and build lifetime value.

    Wicket said it currently has 9 customers plus pilots with Motor Trend, Pure Flex Entertainment, UP Entertainment and other TV networks. Wicket will use the new funds to build their software development team and address new vertical OTT services.