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Social Nation’s CEO is a Thai-national, which helped Invent make the decision to support the startup

Invent, the VC arm of Thailand’s Intouch Holdings PLC, has announced today it participated in the pre-Series A round of Social Nation Inc., a Silicon Valley-based advertising technology startup.

The investment was made to support Social Nation’s development of a Virtual Reality (VR) and 360 degree marketing platform which has been launched under the brand ‘OmniVirt’.

The round included participation from Index Ventures (based in Europe and San Francisco), Palo Alto’s Virtual Reality Investment Fund and the New York-based Greycroft Partners. Other undisclosed strategic investors also participated.

The money will be used to hire a sales team to expand the product to markets outside of the US as well as to hire engineers, according to Pongwut Ittipoonsawat, a VC associate at Invent. The company said it is aggressively working to take its VR product global.

“They already have some customer in Thailand. We will help them expand their customer base in Thailand and also in the neighboring countries through our network,” he told e27.

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OmniVirt boasts The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal as high-profile clients.

What makes the product unique is the advertisements can be viewed on any web browser without having to download a separate software.

“Our VR technology helps advertisers effectively deliver their immersive 360° content to their target audiences through our extensive publisher network. With help from Intouch, we will be able to expand to ASEAN more easily, which is a very promising market for digital advertising,” said Social Nation CEO Prachaya Phaisanwiphatpong in a statement.

Phaisanwiphatpong is a Thai national, which Ittipoonsawat said helped to make the deal more appealing.

“We want to support Thai entrepreneurs who can build a successful startup outside of Thailand, especially in the Silicon Valley,” he said.

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Invest was founded in 2012 and focusses on growth-stage internet companies in Thailand and Southeast Asia. The deal will make Social Nation InVent’s tenth portfolio company, with other companies including a golf-booking platform named Golfdigg and a mobile-first engagement company called Playbasis.

Social Nation was founded in 2013 and graduated from the Y Combinator accelerator programme. It received seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel and General Catalyst prior to today’s news.

Its other product, ‘AdsOptimal’, has found success, having delivered over 2 billion impressions to consumers, and helping over 100,000 websites monetise their companies.

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Copyright: leungchopan / 123RF Stock Photo

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