NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tinypass, which enables media companies and websites to create paid content business models, announced today it has closed a $3 million round of funding led by investment firms Cascabel Management and Plough Penny Partners. Tinypass CEO Trevor Kaufman also participated in the round, which follows $1.25 million in seed financing raised by the company in 2012. The Tinypass platform enables an emerging new business model for the Internet, in which site owners supplement their advertising revenue by charging for premium content.
In addition to the funding news, Tinypass also today named three new executives to its leadership team, adding Brian Carroll as chief operating officer, Matt Frazier as chief technology officer and Todd Trippany as executive vice president, sales & business development. All three bring deep expertise in the digital space – Carroll was previously VP of finance & strategy for mobile start-up PlaceIQ and also served in a variety of roles at Akamai. Frazier joins from cybersecurity firm Mandiant where he was director of strategy. Trippany was most recently global alliance manager at Omniture.
“Consumers are increasingly willing to pay for quality content, and the proof is in the high conversion rates we’re seeing across our publisher base,” said Tinypass CEO Trevor Kaufman. “For media companies, the question is becoming less about whether paid options make sense and more about finding a strategy for successful implementation. Today’s funding and the addition of Brian, Matt and Todd to the Tinypass team are the next step in our mission to make digital content monetization as easy, effective and consumer-friendly as possible.”
Growing at a rate of 40 percent on a month-to-month basis since the beginning of the year, Tinypass is utilized by a diverse range of clients to create paid content solutions. Users include major media companies, local newspapers from around the world, online education providers, health and wellness sites, business information providers and research organizations. The Tinypass platform integrates smoothly with publishers’ existing site infrastructure, is free to set up, and scales to support operations of any size – from individual bloggers to multi-national publications with millions of readers.
“Quality content, whether niche or mainstream, is easily crowded out on the web by awkward, ad-supported, noise. Tinypass is an elegant answer for media owners looking to offer a transparent, consumer-friendly paid content solution,” said Scott Sinclair, managing director at Cascabel Management. “As revenue models across the digital universe shift away from a straight ad-supported model, Tinypass is perfectly positioned to equip a growing mass of content providers with paid solutions.”
“Media companies are realizing with increasing alacrity that they can no longer rely on banner ads alone to power their digital operations,” said Judson Traphagen, partner at Plough Penny Partners. “Tinypass takes much of the risk out of implementing a paid content solution, enabling publishers and content owners to quickly and easily launch a custom system that just a few years ago would have taken millions of dollars and months of development.”
About Tinypass
Tinypass is an e-commerce platform that allows content creators and media owners to monetize their digital content quickly, powerfully and effectively. Simple to deploy and free to set-up, Tinypass brings the functionality of major paywalls and download services to every site on the Internet, with a flexible and lightweight architecture that scales to support operations of any size – from individual bloggers to multi-national publications with millions of readers. Tinypass integrates easily with leading content management systems and its huge variety of pricing, access and subscription options allows content owners to develop customized paid content offerings that fit their audience and support their revenue strategy. Tinypass is online at www.tinypass.com.