After raising $1.7 million in new financing last month from IA Ventures and SoftBank Capital, New York-based Visual Revenue Inc. plans to hire at least 10 new employees this year. The 16-person company was founded in 2010 by Dennis R. Mortensen, the former director of data insights at Yahoo.
Visual Revenue makes software for news and content publishers that recommends where and when to place stories on their websites and mobile apps. The company's algorithms analyze a publication's audience viewing habits in real-time to deliver precise recommendations for each client, Mortensen said. The company's customers include the New York Daily News and Fast Company.
While its product is based around analytics, Mortensen says its real value is in its recommendation feature rather than just dumping data onto the laps of editors. "I don't want to turn an editor into an analyst," Mortensen said. "I want to analyze data, come to a conclusion and give you a solution."
The majority of the company's new hires will be for technical roles, including front- and back-end engineers familiar with the database technology MongoDB and the Python programming language. The company will also be hiring salespeople.
Cash compensation is competitive, Mortensen says, but the company's puts more emphasis on equity.
Candidates can distinguish themselves by demonstrating a passion for transforming, and even helping to save, the news industry. "We all read the same articles about how the news media is in flux," Mortensen said. "We're not the silver bullet, but we will help participate in whatever the next step might be."
Write to Joseph Walker at Joseph.Walker@dowjones.com
