URL to IRL insights: KC analytics startup downloads $1.2M pre-seed round powered by coalition of VCs

The region’s investment community is rallying around an Overland Park tech startup that unlocks insights from videos online and beyond — and its trio of Kansas City founders is grateful to see local talent earning capital that more easily flows to coastal innovators.

A $1.2 million pre-seed for dScribe AI is expected to fuel growth after locking in investments from Kansas City venture leaders at KCRise Fund, Abstraction Capital, and Flyover Capital, along with Redbud VC and EquipmentShare in Columbia, Missouri.

It’s the first time this group of investors has invested in a deal together, according to Liam Reilly, principal and general counsel for KCRise Fund.

“They’re excited to foster the next generation of entrepreneurial talent, especially in tech,” Jordan Mryyan, dScribe co-founder and CEO, said of the local investor support. “We all kind of embody that vibe and energy that I think they want to help foster in the community.”

“There’s a ton of talent and good ideas from Kansas City, but almost all the funding typically goes to coastal startups,” added Cole Robertson, dScribe co-founder and CTO. “A lot of the people we got funding from in this area were like, ‘Hey, we find talent where it is and there’s a ton of talent in the Midwest.’ So we’re really grateful to see that appreciation and we’re excited to grow the tech scene in this area, as well.”

dScribe co-founders Jordan Mryyan, Cole Robertson, and Warren Wang; courtesy photo

dScribe — launched in September 2024 — is transforming how developers and enterprises tap into the vast potential of video and other rich-media content by building a next-generation platform and application programming interface (API) that seamlessly transforms video from any source — whether on media platforms or directly from enterprise data — into actionable insights, according to the startup.

“What excites me most about dScribe AI is how they’ve cracked the code on making internet video and multimedia content truly accessible and actionable,” explained Taylor Clauson, managing partner at Abstraction Capital in a news release. “The infrastructure the team has built is the next evolution of harnessing video data wherever it lives, whether online, in enterprise systems, or beyond.”

Companies across AI, social listening, and enterprise applications are already leveraging dScribe AI to unlock new capabilities, the co-founders noted.

“With dScribe AI, we’ve redefined the way we extract insights from online video content. Our integration now allows us to unlock direct insights from millions of videos posted daily across social platforms,” said Nirain Patel, product manager at Pulsar Platform, a publicly traded audience intelligence and social listening company and a dScribe AI customer. “By simply providing a social video URL, we capture both visual and audio details, ensuring no critical insight is overlooked.” 

As an engineer, Mryyan said, he’s always been interested in how AI can be used with video. He started developing tools to leverage video data from the internet, but quickly realized how cumbersome the process was — inspiring him and co-founders Robertson and Warren Wang to create dScribe AI.

“This insight led me and my co-founders to speak with developers and companies across industries, where we found a consistent trend: video data is crucial to their operations, yet there’s no straightforward way to harness it,” he added in a news release.

Using the pre-seed funding, Wang said, dScribe plans to advance its cutting-edge technology and expand its suite of products, while also driving customer growth and deepening strategic partnerships.