Visual.ly Raises $2 Million To Create Infographics

Sites include visual.ly . Published on October 25th, 2011. Written by Anthony West.

Ever since Bit.ly proved that heavy branding is achievable on the .LY extension, new companies have been using it as an alternative to paying through the nose for a .Com. One such company is Visual.ly a spin-off company from Mint’s Infographics. The young startup has reportedly managed to raise $2 million in seed money to fund its development.

The funding round was led by Crosslink Capital, SoftTech and 500 Startups. But the number of people willing to invest didn’t stop there. According to the funding report, other angel investors like Kapor Capital, Giza Ventures, Naval Ravikant, Mark Goines, and Josh James came up with some cash to help get Visual.ly off the ground.

The logical question to ask therefore is why the eagerness to invest in Visual.ly? What is it really about? The company specializes in what in media is called data visualizations. This is the act of representing what is normally pages and pages of text into nice graphical messages. It’s kind of like using a picture to paint a thousand words. In recent years media and advertising agencies have been leaning more towards data visualization and it is this thrust that is pushing companies like Mint and now its spin-off, Visual.ly.

The whole data visualization space is still finding its footing but from the early evidence, it’s definitely going to be a cash cow. This is perhaps why investors are jumping to invest in companies like Visual.ly.

Watch the video below to learn more about infographics and Visual.ly:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=AiVKfNeRbPQ