Florida Innovation Capital (FIC), a venture fund committed to supporting economic growth in the Sunshine State, is leading seed funding for tech startup Third Summit. FIC has committed $2.75M of the $4.5M funding for Third Summit to continue expanding its flagship SaaS platform, Alteon.io, whose recent partnerships and market reception exemplify the type of company FIC wants to support in Florida.
FIC believes this boldly original startup, focused on the burgeoning $100-billion creator economy, is a future unicorn for Florida. Alteon is an unprecedented, award-winning cloud-based platform that addresses pain points for content creators throughout the entire creative workflow, letting creators more easily upload, share, review, archive and collaborate on media in a single, universal place. Leveraging high-profile partnerships and integrations with leading creative tech companies, including Apple, Opera, IBM and others, Alteon reduces creators' reliance on single-purpose apps. Its vast scope includes proprietary cloud-based media transcoding, maximized data upload, AI organization and Web3 integration.
In Q1 2023, Alteon saw an incredible 104% increase in total users, in part thanks to a highly receptive creator community, a successful partnership with the Student Television Network and high-profile integrations with companies such as Apple, whose Final Cut Pro Ecosystem welcomed Alteon last fall, shortly before the company debuted their iOS app.
Alteon also partnered with leading web browser Opera to unveil Alteon LaunchPad, a unique tool that simplifies the NFT minting process, underscoring Third Summit's commitment to bridging the technological gap between creators of all backgrounds on an international scale. That groundbreaking tool was announced during Art Basel Miami onstage with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who vocally supported the company's mission.
"This milestone is only possible because of the hard work of everyone on our team along with our dedicated investors," said Third Summit co-founder and CEO Matt Cimaglia. "We are united in our vision to build a product on a strong foundation, with core principles that will keep ahead with the rapidly expanding scale of today's creator economy. We're proud to be building infrastructure to help steer the future of creativity."
This success is largely due to Cimaglia's founding vision and experience building and running an award-winning creative agency for more than 20 years. Long before NFTs, Web3 and the rise of remote work, he knew that the future of content creation would rely on virtual collaboration, cloud-based technologies and new digital platforms. His prediction was proven starkly correct in less than a year, when the pandemic accelerated all these trends.
"Under Matt's leadership, Third Summit has built unprecedented partnerships with leading technology companies and developed a truly unique platform that is helping thousands of content creators work more efficiently using the power of cloud computing," said Michael Munz, president of FIC. "Alteon is a future-proof product with a stable roadmap and strategy. We are excited to be the lead investors for Third Summit's seed round and help power a new creative ecosystem."
According to a report by Morning Consult, the creator economy is estimated to be worth more than $100 billion, with more than 50 million creators globally. With content consumption trends skyrocketing and streaming giants investing heavily to compete for audiences, the media-technology space has proven largely protected from recent startup troubles, banking collapses and recession fears. Third Summit and Alteon have withstood these market fluctuations by securing reliable capital to build out a comprehensive and successful product that's currently being used by thousands of content creators worldwide.
For more information, visit thirdsummit.com. To learn more about FIC, visit floridainnovationcapital.com.
