Vidyard is a

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

company headquartered in

Kitchener, Ontario Kitchener is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario, about west of Toronto. It is one of three cities that make up the Regional Municipality of Waterloo and is the regional Administrative centre, seat. Kitchener was known as Berlin until a ...

, that creates software to host and analyze video performance. The company was founded in May 2010 by Cliffton Moore of St. Cloud, MN.

Beginnings

Originally starting as a fourth-year design project at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

, cofounders Michael Litt, Devon Galloway, Cliffton Moore and Edward Wu launched Vidyard in August 2011. On November 17, 2011, the company announced $1.65 million in

seed funding Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggests ...

from investors including Softech VC (now Uncork Capital), YouTube Co-founder

Jawed Karim Jawed Karim (born October 28, 1979) is an American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur. He is one of the co-founders of YouTube and the first person to upload a video to the site. The site's inaugural video, "Me at the zoo", uploaded o ...

Y Combinator (company) Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, expande ...

, and

Gmail Gmail is the email service provided by Google. it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide, making it the largest email service in the world. It also provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser, and is also ...

creator

Paul Buchheit Paul T. Buchheit (born November 7, 1977) is an American computer engineer and entrepreneur who created the email service Gmail. He developed the original prototype of Google AdSense as part of his work on Gmail. He also suggested Google's former ...

. Among the graduating class of Y Combinator, Vidyard was listed as second among five startups to keep an eye on in 2012, as well as fifth among the top 15 startups in Canada.

History

Michael Litt was going into his last year of school while he was creating short explanation videos for companies along with co-founder Devon Galloway. A majority of their clients were putting their videos online with

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

and

Vimeo Vimeo ( ) is an American Online video platform, video hosting, sharing, and services provider founded in 2004 and headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices and operates on a ...

, but were complaining about both products. While brainstorming ideas for his end-of-curriculum design project, Michael Litt decided to build Vidyard, to address the video hosting issues that his clients were having. After graduating, he applied to

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

and began raising funds to launch the company.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
Online companies of Canada Video hosting Y Combinator companies Canadian companies established in 2011 Companies based in Kitchener, Ontario 2011 establishments in Ontario