Diddo is an API for streaming services and other platforms to integrate shoppable videos, allowing consumers to purchase clothing and accessories of their favorite characters directly on their screens. The company announced Wednesday that it has raised $2.8 million in seed funding.
Diddo was founded in late 2022 by Rishi Nair, Ryan Sullivan and Pamela Chen. Funnily enough, it started as a Google Chrome extension designed for Nair and Sullivan’s mothers, “Selling Sunset” fans who wanted to dress like their favorite reality TV stars. Now the company has developed an API that uses proprietary computer vision AI technology to identify products in TV shows and movies. The AI also pulls out comparable products, allowing shoppers to buy cheaper duplicates if, for example, Kim Kardashian’s $700 Balenciaga T-shirt is out of their price range.
The funding round was led by Link Ventures and included Neo, Dante D’Angelo (Valentino), Erica Lockheimer (LinkedIn), Camille Ricketts (ex-CMO of Notion), an unnamed Disney executive, and the well-known Scott Forstall involved, among other things, leading the Apple team that developed iOS.
The new capital will support product development and expand the company’s eight-person team. The company recently hired Rob Sussman (also a Diddo investor), the former CFO of Sundance and executive vice president of MGM+ (formerly Epix), as COO.
Diddo has signed deals with 12 companies so far, including DailyMotion, Mux, Highlights App, social sports platform PlayersOnly, film and television collective The Big Picture, fashion brand Blaire New York and more. The company also told us that it is actively in discussions with Hulu and another streaming giant.
Photo credit: Did
Diddo believes its API differentiates itself from the competition through the computer vision technology built into a platform’s video player.
Nair told TechCrunch: “We are the only company doing this so far. These companies don’t have to broadcast their videos outside of their ecosystem. This is a big deal because of all these media companies [think] It’s not a problem if they need to send their video outside the API to run the computer vision. So what we’ve figured out is integrating our computer vision into their video ecosystem so that we can move completely from video capture to trading capabilities without leaving the company.”
One of the challenges here, however, is that running computer vision over a video viewed by millions of users simultaneously “puts an incredible burden on the end user’s device,” Nair admitted. “To avoid this problem, we decided to develop the product with a time-stamped approach to documenting the products. We run the computer vision once over the video, where it identifies all the products found in the content and inserts them into a time-stamped database. Since the products don’t change with on-demand content, we only need to run it once on our end and don’t require anything from the streamer or end user.”
Photo credit: Did
Additionally, no QR codes are required (this applies to Peacock’s Must ShopTV feature) and products are not presented as intrusive advertisements (Roku’s Shoppable Ads), so users are not excluded from the viewing experience.
Diddo allows consumers to view all items in an interactive storefront after the episode ends. They then complete the purchase through a native checkout feature that includes integrations with major eCommerce services such as Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and SalesForce Cloud. Diddo also collects user data about what products a viewer is interested in in order to recommend similar items in the future.
Diddo charges a 4-6% fee on all purchases made on the platform.
The latest funding round follows major streaming service Paramount’s partnership with AI-powered shoppable technology Shopsense AI. The streamer introduced its new mobile shopping experience on April 7th. Last week, Amazon’s Prime Video and Freevee released a free, ad-supported channel for shoppable live streams.