Piqora (formerly Pinfluencer)

Piqora, initially launched as Pinfluencer in 2012, operated as a marketing and analytics platform tailored for visual social networks like Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr. The company was established by co-founders Sharad Verma (CEO), Naveen Akunuri (CTO), and Suvda Myagmar. Sharad Verma brought over 15 years of experience in building AI-based analytics and workflow automation products, including a significant tenure at Yahoo where he led search ranking and advertising groups. This background in analytics and monetization was foundational to Piqora's strategy.

The firm provided a suite of tools for businesses to analyze the performance of visual content, enabling marketers to measure return on investment, engage with influencers, and manage their communities on these platforms. Its core technology centered on image recognition, hashtag tracking, and URL parsing to deliver insights on content, competitive performance, and audience profiles. The business model was geared towards enterprise clients, offering a platform that could integrate with major systems like Google Analytics and Omniture to track the entire image conversion funnel. This service attracted prominent customers, including Crate and Barrel, Etsy, and Steve Madden.

Piqora's product allowed brands to discover, curate, and publish socially validated photos across various channels. Key features included a visual CRM, a content management system, and tools to identify trending images and user advocates. A specific offering, 'Tapshop', made a brand's Instagram feed shoppable, directly connecting visual content to commerce. Over its lifetime, Piqora raised a total of $11.2 million in funding across three rounds from investors such as DFJ, Baseline Ventures, and Altos Ventures. In March 2016, Piqora was acquired by Olapic, a visual content marketing platform, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition aimed to merge the two companies' technologies to create a more comprehensive visual marketing suite, integrating Piqora's strengths in Pinterest analytics and Instagram commerce into Olapic's platform.

Keywords: visual marketing, social media analytics, Pinterest marketing, Instagram marketing, content management system, image recognition, visual commerce, marketing analytics platform, social CRM, brand advocates, user-generated content analytics, Pinfluencer, Sharad Verma, Olapic acquisition, social media ROI, e-commerce marketing, content scheduling, visual content performance, hashtag analytics, influencer marketing platform