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.
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.
Join our growing Slack community
Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!