In the words of the great Austin Powers, allow myself to introduce...myself. If you've been enjoying our articles for a bit now, well, that's awesome! But we also realize you may not know exactly who (or better yet, what) RootNote is.
The short of it is, we're a bunch of people who care about providing tools to content creators and the people who help them flourish. But we're also a bit more than that — we're a growing data software company meant to empower the sports, entertainment, and media landscaping. Not to mention a Techstars 2023 company that just raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round!
The RootNote Pre-Seed Raise
The pre-seed funding round was led by Indianapolis-based Elevate Ventures. While we were previously in a “private beta” stage, we're now opening up the platform to the wider public.
A 2023 alum of the Techstars Sports Powered by Indy Accelerator, RootNote is also backed by Sequoia, Popstar Ventures, Hilltop Venture Partners, Techstars, eonCapital, Sports Tech HQ, Johnson Venture Partners, Flywheel Fund, Alderbrook Companies, and other notable angel investors. We've doubled(!) our team size and expanded the platform’s features and availability to include more companies, universities, and organizations.
Want the technical spiel? Here you go:
RootNote is a software as a service (SaaS) company serving creative teams and content creators in the sports, entertainment, and media landscape. The company is developing the first comprehensive platform designed to help athletes, creators, media companies, and the teams, organizations, and brands that they work with leverage their data from hundreds of platforms to grow their business. RootNote ingests data from digital content, social media, e-commerce, and other third-party platforms so users can better understand their digital audiences and maximize revenue opportunities. Early users of the platform include NFL teams, MiLB teams, talent agencies, media and Esports companies, universities, brand name creators, and NIL groups.
Why RootNote Exists
“We believe every business is a content creator and every content creator is a business,” says RootNote co-founder and Chief Creative Officer Jeremy Burchard. “But creators and the companies that work with them have been woefully underserved when it comes to comprehensive data tools to help them run their businesses. That’s why RootNote exists.”
RootNote was co-founded by brothers Jason and Jeremy Burchard and Chief Technology Officer Chandler Barnes to address data needs within the music industry. We pretty quickly learned RootNote could address critical pain points for industries far beyond music — any company building global audiences with digital content can benefit from RootNote’s unique approach to data aggregation and customizable visualizations.
“This is a really exciting space to build in, and we all care deeply about the problem and the people it affects,” says Barnes. “We’re solving a serious technical challenge of interfacing with hundreds of platforms, APIs, and data ingestion methods to create a single-pane-of-glass view. It’s rare we get to build something with so much promise in such a cool market that we all love.”
Investment Means Opportunity
During the 2023 Techstars Sports demo day, we unveiled the platform's innovative new customizable data visualization canvas, “Dataspaces.” Investors were impressed (hooray!) by our unique approach to business intelligence and expertise in the field.
“Elevate Ventures is thrilled to support RootNote at the intersection of data analytics and the creator economy," said Myles Grote, Partner at Elevate Ventures. "Data is the new gold in this rapidly evolving sector, and RootNote's innovative platform is poised to unlock significant value for creators and organizations alike in sports, media, and entertainment. We are excited about the future of RootNote and the transformative impact their technology will have on harnessing data to fuel growth and success in the creator economy.”
"Our investors see the same global market opportunity as we do in sports, media, and entertainment, and we're grateful to have their support and guidance as we embark on this next phase of growth," says co-founder and CEO Jason Burchard. "This funding is a testament not only to the team we've built and the problems we're solving, but also to the strength of the Techstars network."