Explica

Explica Inc.
Private
Industry
Founded May 28, 2016 (2016-05-28) in Tucson, Arizona[1]
Founders Viputheshwar Sitaraman
Headquarters Austin, Texas, U.S.
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
Number of employees
 1 - 10
Website explica.co

Explica is an American digital media startup company based out of Austin, TX. With a focus on millennials and Gen Zers, the company broadly defines itself as a "visual media/entertainment site"[2] covering sports, entertainment and tech.

Explica is best known for the use of infographics as the site's primary medium, with the slogan, "Less words, more pictures." The company has a higher composition of 18- to 34-year-old readers than any other news sites: Explica's audience is over 80% millennials, comparing to between 40 - 50% for Mic, BuzzFeed, and Upworthy.[3] The site received early attention for its unique formula to attracting younger readers with visual content; Entrepreneur remarked, "If you're trying to get young people to read your content, use visuals."[4]

History

Explica originally started in July 2014, as a science communication blog, founded by Viputheshwar Sitaraman, an incoming freshman at the University of Arizona at the time. The blog was then-named Draw Science[5] and featured weekly infographics on science news. In the next year, it garnered over two million views, syndication on Business Insider, and featured at ARCSCon in Philadelphia and the Lindau-Nobel Laureate Meetings in Germany.

In August 2015, a successful crowdfunding campaign[6] helped scale Draw Science into an infographic consulting business for academic publishers. After launching the company in September, Sitaraman rapidly closed deals & partnerships with prominent scientific organizations including PeerJ, the USDA, and Elsevier. Later on, the business diversified from specializing science communication & outreach to offering a range of services for content marketing with infographics.

Funding

In May 2016, the company raised a round of funding from Seed Sumo,[7] a startup accelerator based out of Austin, Texas. During the accelerator, the company went through a heavy-testing pivot phase during which Sitaraman launched Explica.[2] The site brought in nearly half-a-million native views and another 1 million off-site in its first month, July 2016.[4]

Explica homepage as of September 1, 2016

In October 2016, Draw Science was closed & moved under the new brand, Explica Labs,[8] as the company focused on its pivot to the media site. The following month, the company raised $450,000 at an undisclosed valuation in a seed round led by MVII8, a private equity firm in Austin.[9]

Labs

Explica's revenue is split between advertising and content partnerships. The latter range of services are offered through the branch known as Explica Labs,[8] which houses the old Draw Science team. This division collaborates with a variety of companies and brands, including Hillary Clinton, American Scientist, and Soylent, under different content creation & marketing partnerships.[10]

Reception

Graphics created by Explica have been featured in Newsweek,[11] Daily Mail,[12] VICE,[13] and Gizmodo.[14] The company has made several press appearances including Forbes,[15] Entrepreneur,[4] Inc.,[10] NPR/Public Media,[16] Times Highered Education,[17] as well as several other publications.

Explica Inc. is a privately-held, Delaware C Corporation.

References

  1. ↑ "UA Graduate Already on the Fast Track". UANews. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Visual News". Explica™. Explica Inc. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  3. ↑ Moses, Lucia (2014-09-11). "How well are millennial news sites reaching their target demo?". Digiday. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  4. 1 2 3 Sarkhedi, Bhavik (2016-08-01). "This Is What You Need To Know About The News Media Revolution". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  5. ↑ "Draw Science". Internet Archive. Wayback Machine. 2015-04-03. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  6. ↑ "Draw Science: Open Access Infographic Journal". Experiment - Moving Science Forward. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  7. ↑ "Seed Sumo Health & Fitness Fund". Seed Sumo. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  8. 1 2 "We know visual content". Explica Labs. Explica Inc. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  9. ↑ "MVII8 - Private Venture Capital Firm | Austin, TX". MVII8. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  10. 1 2 "Go Viral Now: Why You Need Infographics". Inc.com. 2016-09-06. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  11. ↑ AM, Zoë Schlanger On 9/22/15 at 9:35 (2015-09-22). "Auras Are Real, and Yours Looks Like Pig-Pen's". Newsweek. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  12. ↑ "Scientists create software that they claim can measure beauty". Mail Online. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  13. ↑ "Your 'Microbial Cloud' Is Like a Floating, Invisible Fingerprint". Motherboard. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  14. ↑ Stone, Maddie. "We're all Surrounded by a Personal Cloud of Bacteria". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  15. ↑ Farrell, John. "Young Entrepreneur Hopes To Improve Science Communication Through Better Graphics". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  16. ↑ "18-Year-Old UA Grad: 'Always Been Trying to Be Ahead'". www.azpm.org. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
  17. ↑ "How science is distilling its message". Times Higher Education (THE). 2015-09-10. Retrieved 2016-11-01.
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