Diddo is an API for streaming services and other platforms to embed 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.
Dido was founded in late 2022 by Rishi Nair, Ryan Sullivan and Pamela Chen and started as a Google Chrome extension created for Nair and Sullivan’s mothers who are fans of “Selling Sunset” and wanted to dress up like their favorite stars reality. 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 in comparable products so shoppers can buy items at a lower price if, say, Kim Kardashian’s $700 Balenciaga T-shirt is out of their price range.
The funding round was led by Link Ventures, with participation from Neo, Dante D’Angelo (Valentino), Erica Lockheimer (LinkedIn), Camille Ricketts (former CMO of Notion), an unnamed Disney executive and Scott Forstall, who is known for leading the Apple team that created iOS, among others.
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) as COO. He is the former CFO of Sundance and executive vice president of MGM+ (formerly Epix).
Diddo has signed deals with 12 companies so far, including Dailymotion, Mux, Highlights app, social sports platform PlayersOnly, film and TV collective The Big Picture, fashion brand Blair New York and more. The company also revealed that it is in active talks with Hulu and another streaming giant.
Image Credits: Dido
Diddo says its API stands out from competitors because of its computer vision technology, which sits inside a platform’s video player.
“We’re the only company doing it so far,” Nair told TechCrunch. “These companies don’t need to send their video outside of their ecosystem. This is a huge deal because all these media companies [think] It’s non-starter if they have to send their video outside the API to run computer vision. So what we’ve been able to figure out is to set up our computer vision in their video ecosystem so that we can fully transition from video ingestion to commerce capabilities without leaving.”
One of the challenges with this, however, is that running computer vision over a video watched by millions of users simultaneously is “incredibly taxing on the end user’s device,” Nair said. “To avoid this issue, we decided to build the product with a time-stamped approach to product documentation. With this, we run computer vision once over the video, where it identifies all the products within the content and puts them into a time-stamped database. Because the products in on-demand content don’t change, we only need to run it once on our end and require nothing from the streamer or end user.”
Image Credits: Dido
Plus, no QR codes are required (like Peacock’s Must ShopTV feature) and products aren’t presented as intrusive ads (see Roku’s shoppable ads), so users aren’t removed from the viewing experience.
With Diddo, people can view all the items in an interactive showcase after the episode ends. They then complete the purchase through a native checkout feature that includes integrations with major e-commerce services such as Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento and Salesforce Cloud. Diddo also collects user data about the products users are interested in to recommend similar items to them in the future.
Diddo receives a 4% to 6% commission on all purchases made on the platform.
The latest round of funding follows The Paramount partnership with AI powered Shopsense AI technology. The streamer debuted its new mobile shopping experience on April 7. Last week, Amazon’s Prime Video and Freevee launched a free, ad-supported channel for purchasable live streams.
