Founded by Google AdMob and Yahoo alums, Glystn is a tool for content creators that allows them to engage with followers and read/reply comments from multiple social media platforms in one place. The startup announced today that it has raised $4 million in seed funding.
The starting round was led by Eniac Ventures, Hannah Gray VC and Future Perfect Ventures. Glystn is also supported by Angels Michael Spiegelman, Netflix’s VP of content and business product innovation, and Meritech CEO Craig Sherman. In total, the company raised $4.75 million.
“We truly believe that Glystn and their multi-platform creator analytics are building that infrastructure and that platform to solve the problem in this next phase of growth, customer acquisition, brand awareness and authenticity in the years to come,” Jessica Peltz-Zatulove, partner at Hannah Gray, told businessroundups.org.
Dubbed a “community engagement engine” for creators, Glystn uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to scan and categorize thousands of comments and threads from Discord and YouTube, empowering influencers to learn what the trending topics are within their community. Users can access insights and analytics, such as top posts, returning attendees, and trending segments or videos.
Notably, influencers can respond to subscribers individually and in bulk, sending custom responses to multiple followers commenting on the same topic, which the system retrieves based on keywords.
However, co-founder and CEO Ethan Fassett told us, “We don’t enable creators to simply message their entire community in mass direct replies… This keeps messages focused on relevant recipients at all times.”
Creators can also invite followers to their Discord, launch polls, and more.
Glystn is currently pre-launch, so the platform only integrates with Discord and YouTube, at least for now. However, the company plans to add others when Glystn officially launches, explained Fassett, who previously worked at Yahoo as a senior product manager. Fassett did not disclose the exact launch date, but said it was “imminent”.
Recent funding will primarily go to the product, which will eventually adopt a tiered subscription model for solo creators, larger creators (over a million followers), and brands.
Founded in 2021 by Fassett and co-founder Michael Rowehl, former director of technology at Google AdMob, Glystn has more than 20 pilot partners, including Louis Weiss, Steve Schimmel, EmperorLemon, A. J. RafaelPodcast Junkies, RollingLive Studios, and Fox Sports, among others.
Weisz, a YouTuber with nearly 730,000 subscribers and more than 4,000 Discord members, spoke to businessroundups.org about Glystn and expressed how connected he feels with his followers since using the platform. From a brand perspective, Weisz also mentioned how useful Glystn is for sponsors to get a better idea of the target audience and what products they will respond to.
“The biggest time saver is how easy it is to see at a glance what your audience is talking about,” Weisz said. “[Glystn] is a way to get to grips with your audience in real time instead of just making assumptions based on the videos your audience clicks.”