It all started out with a whim from Prabhakar Bellamkonda’s daughter, then a 9-year-old who wanted to impress her pals.
“My daughter wanted to send a video to 30 of her friends,” said Bellamkonda. But she didn’t want to go through YouTube: “I want something elegant,” she said.
That’s when Bellakmonda realized there was a missing market for personal video-sharing and greeting tools.
Prabhakar Bellamkonda. (Courtesy photo)
So he teamed up with Vijay Thota in 2012 and built Inviter, a tool for “strictly video invitations,” he said.
They began receiving emails from more and more businesses that wanted similar custom-made services.
When William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, the big-shot national talent agency, asked for help in sending video invitations to 250 directors, Inviter knew it had hit on something bigger than anticipated.
“We turned around and turned the website into a B-to-B-to-C platform,” said Bellamkonda. That’s business-to-business-to-consumer, for those scoring at home.
That was in October 2014. Inviter has now worked with clients like Canada’s Weather Network, Tech Cocktail and Montgomery County. It has attracted more than 2,000 personal users and 100 business users, according to Bellamkonda.
The company now does “video invitations, video greetings and video newsletter service,” Bellamkonda said. It also performs analytics reports for events.
Inviter will be releasing its iPad app in March.
Before you go...
Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.
3 ways to support our work:- Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
- Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
- Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
Chris Wink
Cofounder & CEO, Technical.ly
Join our growing Slack community
Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!
