Nota Pre-Seed Memo: An AI-Enabled SAAS Company is Transforming the Publishing Landscape

The team at Ankord Labs is thrilled to announce its incubation and investment in Nota, an AI-enabled SAAS company touting a suite of AI tools built to tackle the news publishing industry’s greatest content creation and distribution problems. In December of 2022, Nota was co-founded by Joshua Brandau, Milan Kordestani, Evan Young, and Ben Gerst, with a pre-seed investment of $3.3 million. This significant milestone was a testament to the revolutionary impact Nota's proprietary technology has already had on the content creation landscape. With this substantial funding, Nota’s team has shown tremendous traction, reaching a wider range of audiences with new digital products.

Nota’s innovative approach to content creation has captured the attention of both the media and enterprise markets, and we're buzzing with excitement to witness Nota's expansion into new verticals. Mentorship from Microsoft has been nothing short of transformative, providing Nota with access to cutting-edge resources, customers, and financial grants to accelerate Nota to the forefront of the industry.

Most importantly, the team at Nota is driven by a profound sense of purpose. Its founders are deeply passionate about protecting the integrity of journalism and the vital role it plays in society. They’re acutely aware of the challenges facing modern publishers, as the cost of producing content has crept up steadily over the past decade. Nota's mission has always been to equip publishers with the tools they need to produce high-quality, engaging content that resonates deeply with their audiences. Their unwavering commitment to supporting quality journalism and streamlining content creation originates in Nota’s convenient marriage between publishing pain-points and AI-development know-how: a story of Nota’s own transformational start.

Day 1 at Nota

Nota's journey began not as a product, but as a solution to a pressing industry problem. 

In 2022, founder and initial investor Milan Kordestani was at the helm of The Doe, a digital publication he established to share vetted, anonymous narratives. Milan was steadfast in his commitment to preserving The Doe's ethos of delivering high-quality, first-person, empathy-inducing stories. Recognizing the necessity to scale The Doe through broader partnerships, Milan sought the expertise of a seasoned industry leader. With the help of Ankord Labs’ Head of People, Sam Evans, Milan began a passionate search for a visionary, culminating in the appointment of Josh Brandau, the former CMO of the LA Times, as The Doe's new CEO. 

Josh and Milan's dynamic partnership at The Doe ignited a fervor at the publication, where Brandau was tasked with driving revenue and turning the team into a leaner organization. However, as he pushed to reduce overhead costs, the team encountered a common hurdle in publishing: the inability to efficiently and cost-effectively disseminate written stories into various content formats. It was during this time that Josh and Milan had a breakthrough moment. Recognizing that their colleagues in publishing faced similar challenges, Josh leveraged his extensive journalist network, while Ankord Labs’ team developed prototypes of tools for publishers. Josh and Milan redeployed The Doe’s tech team to focus on building those prototypes, while the editorial team spun The Doe off to become a subsidiary of a new publishing non-profit within Ankord Labs’ portfolio. 

And so Nota was born as an AI-oriented toolmaker. With CEO Josh Brandau  at the helm, along with COO Evan Young and CPTO Ben Gerst, Milan Kordestani co-founded Nota as a a full-stack B2B SaaS company with proprietary LLMs designed to streamline the content creation and distribution processes, empowering publishers nationally with the tools they need to drive traffic and revenue in an age dominated by social media. 

The company name Nota, derived from the Latin word for "note," embodies the company's mission to transform any note into the content consumers want. "NOTA" also serves as an acronym for "None Of The Above," reflecting the company's rejection of existing publishing tools and its commitment to pioneering a new approach. The Nota team believes that digital publishers and creators should focus on delivering superior journalism, high quality source content, and valuable information to their audiences. To help, Nota’s suite of tools automate the process of translating source content into optimized formats for all demand-side-platforms, including social media, streaming platforms, and search engines. Nota’s tools allow for publishers and creators to focus on creating, while AI takes care of the tedious and mundane aspects of content conversion. 

Nota's Content Conversion Tools: A Game-Changer for Publishers

CPTO Ben Gerst at Nota immediately began development of several tools that allow Nota's users to convert content quickly and efficiently.

• SUM: A time-saving tool for generating headlines, summaries, top quotes, key points, keywords, categories, and SEO-friendly content.
• IMAGE: An all-encompassing image generator and editor that crafts captivating images in mere seconds, fostering engagement and enhancing visual appeal.
• VID: A comprehensive video generator and editor creating engagement-worthy content in a matter of seconds.
• LETTER: A newsletter builder that creates and compiles headlines, images, and copy from links, captivating audiences and driving engagement.
• BRIEF: A generative snapshot tool for creating concise summaries of news articles and other lengthy content.
• SOCIAL: A social caption creator which optimizes copy for leading social media sites - Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, etc  - with suggested tags.

As more tools became ready for beta testing, Josh Brandau initiated outreach to colleagues within the publishing sector to beta test what was being built. This collaborative effort quickly revealed the potential for expansion throughout the news industry was imminent, prompting the team to explore partnerships with small publications and enterprise blogs. Within 6 months of Nota’s first beta launch, they already had partnerships with over 50 publishers, amassing to over $100K in ARR.

The Team Catches Microsoft’s Attention

In early 2023, Nota's remarkable strides in the media industry allowed them to apply to be a part of Microsoft’s Start Up Hub. The Nota team worked hard in Microsoft's highly competitive Accelerator program, climbing levels of achievement to unlock credits and resources, a testament to the Nota team's innovative approach and transformative impact.  Nota gained access to Microsoft’s Pegasus program, a cutting-edge suite of tools and expansive networks, propelling Nota’s growth and solidifying its position as a frontrunner in the content creation landscape. This recognition led to a $700K grant from Microsoft,  as well as exclusive Azure Hugging Face integrations, access to global compute cores for Nota’s LLM, and two cloud architects.

Today, Nota proudly stands in good company in Microsoft's Journalism Hub, an epicenter of tools, journalists, and builders revolutionizing the media industry, restoring trust in news, and fostering innovation. Nota also joined major industry leaders like Microsoft, Meta, Google, OpenAI, Amazon, and others in signing the Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections, demonstrating the Nota team’s dedication to responsible AI development and deployment. Today, Nota has over 200+ launch partners, and beta testing publications saw an average of a 40% increase in page views with the use of Nota-produced content. 

Nota's Future Funding and Growth

Nota is on the brink of finalizing its first venture-led round of funding, a pivotal step anticipated to inject an additional $3M of strategic institutional capital into the company, securing its sustainability and fueling its growth trajectory. Partnerships with incubators like Ankord Labs, strategic investors within media and tech like Fifth Growth Fund and Trust Ventures underscore the confidence placed in Nota's approach to bolstering the publishing industry. This funding influx will not only facilitate strategic hires but also drive additional partnerships and customers, setting the stage for transformative advancements in content generation. 

Ankord Labs is proud to have played a role in incubating and funding this startup, and eagerly anticipates providing continued updates as the company grows and thrives in the evolving content creation landscape. With a strong leadership team, a proven track record of success, and the backing of reputable partners, Nota is well-positioned to capitalize on the burgeoning demand for innovative content creation solutions. As Nota continues to expand its reach and offerings, it represents an attractive investment opportunity for investors seeking exposure to the rapidly evolving digital media landscape.

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