Serial Entrepreneur, Godard Abel, Leads $10 Million Investment in 3D Product Visualization Technology, ThreeKit

Serial Entrepreneur, Godard Abel, Leads $10 Million Investment in 3D Product Visualization Technology, ThreeKit

Strategic Investment Further Strengthens 3D Visualization Capabilities, Allowing Brands to Create More Interactive and Personalized Online Shopping Experiences

Serial entrepreneur, Godard Abel, has led a $10 million seed round investment in ThreeKit, a 3D product configuration and visualization platform, to help the company further meet the demands of brands for more interactive and personalized e-commerce experiences. The investment will fund talent acquisition, and product and business development for the rapidly growing company.

ThreeKit was founded by Ben Houston, a 15-year veteran in Hollywood Visual FX software, and a dedicated group of 3D pioneers and visual effects professionals. After creating 3D visualization technology for the special effects used in some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster movies, the group has been working with brands to use this same technology to revolutionize the online experience. Houston will now serve as Chief Technology Officer of ThreeKit.

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Abel will take the role of executive chairman of ThreeKit. The leadership team will be comprised of B2B commerce veterans from several well-known companies in the space, including BigMachines (acquired by Oracle), SteelBrick (acquired by Salesforce), CloudCraze (acquired by Salesforce), and G2 Crowd. Executives will include:

  • Joachim Klein, President and COO
  • John Kim, SVP of Sales
  • Slava Kovelman, VP of Operations
  • Kelly Wilson, VP of Customer Success
  • Nancy Rizkallah, VP of Finance

Together, the team has created over $1 billion in investor value and over 1,000 high-tech jobs. Now, they will leverage their expertise to give brands the ability to differentiate their customer experiences through next-generation 3D product visualization, virtual photography and augmented reality (AR).

“Traditionally visualization technologies have been clunky and difficult to use, but ThreeKit is a holistic platform that allows sellers to create their own interactive product experiences for their web stores,” said Houston. “Originally built for Hollywood, we saw a major opportunity to bring this technology to e-commerce, and are leading a new standard of product experience in the industry.”

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ThreeKit’s solutions allow brands to move from static images to a completely interactive 3D experience online, with features such as custom product designs, product tours and more. Additionally, powerful AR and virtual photography capabilities allow customers to preview their customizations before making their purchase decision. By using these tools and showing consumers exactly what they’re getting, brands can see a 40 percent increase in online conversions and an 80 percent reduction in online returns. Brands already leveraging ThreeKit technology include Crate & Barrel, Steelcase and CÎROC.

“There has been a critical gap in the ability of brands to provide engaging product experiences in their web stores, but ThreeKit is solving for this by fulfilling the touch and feel needs consumers have when shopping online,” said Abel. “It’s clear the company is leading a new generation of immersive and experiential commerce, and I look forward to accelerating its momentum to be a world market leader in 3D visualization technology.”

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Chatmeter Launches Workflow to Simplify User Review Management

New AI Technology Streamlines Process to Help National Brands and Businesses Protect Their Brand, Manage Sensitive or Inaccurate Posts Faster, Improve the Customer Experience, and Drive Greater Revenue

Chatmeter, the leader in local search marketing and reputation management, launches Chatmeter’s Workflow, an all-in-one technology platform that simplifies the process of coordinating, escalating and responding to user reviews, local listing data errors and social media commentary. This all-inclusive platform was designed specifically for multi-location brands to control the social local conversation at a national scale with ease.

Chatmeter launches Workflow, an all-inclusive platform to help brands manage local social conversation at a national scale

Chatmeter's Workflow helps multi-location brands control their local social conversation at a national scale, with ease.
Chatmeter’s Workflow helps multi-location brands control their local social conversation at a national scale, with ease.

In 2018, customer reviews reached a record high. 68% of consumers leave local business reviews and 95% of shoppers read those reviews before making a purchase decision. Customer buying behavior has also shifted from wanting products and services to wanting experiences, which is why customer feedback is now discussed in the C-Suite regularly. For businesses with hundreds or thousands of locations, managing real-time consumer concerns, recommendations, business listings or damaging social media posts, for each location is an impossible task at scale. Through additional AI technology investments, Chatmeter’s Workflow creates an automated solution for multi-location businesses to overcome the complexities of this process. Workflow is geared to enable retailers, restaurants, doctor’s offices, banks and credit unions, hotels and real-estate management firms to respond to reviews faster, and more effectively escalate inaccurate information or damaging posts that can potentially cost a brand millions in lost revenue through poor rankings or viral reputation or legal damage.

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Negative or incriminating reviews can cost a physician their license, or a business millions in fines or reputational damage

“Scalability and speed of visibility is where most brands struggle. It doesn’t matter how large or small your marketing and customer service teams are, there are not enough hours in the day to effectively filter and manage the volume and frequency of a brand’s online reviews and related social posts without advanced technology,” says Collin Holmes, Founder and CEO, Chatmeter. “We recognized the need for a deeper integration into the business so that you always have the right people monitoring and responding to reviews at the right time. Workflow addresses these pain points and makes it easier to react to the conversation around a brand. We hear crazy stories from clients about negative posts from disgruntled employees, upset customers or business risks that the company must respond to immediately or face costly damage to their business. Whether it’s a positive post, or an alarming one, Workflow is helping companies grow by focusing on what matters most, the customer – and how the customer experience is handled. Workflow is designed to allow a negative review to go viral inside a business quickly so it doesn’t go viral on social media without proper response.”

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Benefits of Chatmeter’s Workflow tool for your company

Chatmeter’s Workflow tool is designed to make it easier for your whole team to accomplish every task needed to improve your brand’s online visibility.

  • Control – With real-time alerts and reporting, Workflow gives you the power to control the conversation and escalate what’s urgent. Greater visibility around what review, post or listing, for which store or business location, what about it is being escalated, by who, and why.
  • Collaboration – Easier internal collaboration to alert, engage and progress appropriate conversations from the staff, store or district manager, tech or customer support or legal team to the CEO. Externally, you can respond to a review or social post without leaving the platform.

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  • Urgency – Escalate what matters most to your business through “fast tracks” and real-time alerts to manage how a sensitive post, glowing review or inaccurate listing is managed internally to best map to your brand’s evolving needs, priorities and resources. Customize through defined approval processes, service level agreements and open-ended task.
  • Ownership – Stronger accountability among teams with greater visibility into the process of which review and store or business location is where, and from what team member action is required.

For CEOs and CMOs, Workflow is a proven and cost-effective solution to protect your brand. For damaging posts or inaccurate listings, it is a powerful tool to address and mitigate reputational and financial repercussions in the fastest way possible. For positive reviews and optimized local listings, it makes managing the process more efficient to drive more in-store business and sales.

“Workflow is the superglue that brings online reviews, local listings and social posts together,” said Darren Seibert, Product Manager, Chatmeter.“We’re excited to bring this product to market as it resolves so many customer challenges in one dashboard. Workflow will advance a brand’s location-based marketing efforts, but for the everyday tract, it’s going to save businesses a lot of time and resources too.”

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