Toch AI Startup Story: Revolutionizing Video Content with AI & ML

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We are witnessing a tsunami of video content that is growing every minute. As per the Global Video AI Market data, the growth is measured at supersonic speeds. Statistics show that the market for short-form video content is expected to be at $169.4bn by the year 2025. In the hypersonic world that we live in, the venerated IoT solutions are the only coping mechanism. Toch AI is a SaaS company with cloud-agnostic AI solutions. It offers professional services by taking noisy, large data sets and transforming them into engrossing and compelling hyper-global videos.

Founded by Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil in 2016, the startup intends to disrupt video technology by automating workflow using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms, thereby reducing the go-to-market time and costs and increasing ROI for clients.

StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Vinayak Shrivastav (Co-founder & CEO, Toch) to get insights on the startup story and roadmap ahead of the organization. In this article, you'll discover how Toch was started, its revenue model, marketing strategies, and more.

Toch - Company Highlights

Toch - Latest News

December 23, 2021 - Toch.ai partners with USA cricket with an aim to provide video highlights and clips for the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels for USA cricket.

Toch - About and Vision
Toch - Industry Details
Toch - Idea & Inspiration
Toch - Product and USP
Toch - Founders and Team
Toch - Name and Logo
Toch - Business Model & Revenue Model
Toch - Launch and Marketing Strategies
Toch - Funding
Toch - Partnerships
Toch - Recognition & Achievements
Toch - Current Growth and Future Plans
Toch - FAQs

Toch - About and Vision

In the hypersonic world that we live in, the venerated IoT solutions are the only coping mechanism. Toch AI is a SaaS company with cloud-agnostic AI solutions. It offers professional services by taking noisy, large data sets and transforming them into engrossing and compelling hyper-global videos. Its modernistic technological solutions converge in ways that act as a huge revenue and time management tool. Toch AI creates a coherent video editing platform with engagement analytics and real-time production capabilities. With its futuristic deep AI technologies, the team renders new assets from the existing data with a deft auto- share option across 30+ social media platforms or any destination website/app.

The startup's vision is to build tech that empowers creators and enriches content in the dynamic video-centric world. It is at the tip of an undiscovered iceberg when it comes to what AI is capable of. Revolutionizing itself every day while creating cutting-edge technology is a tangible goal. The team doesn't see themselves selling a general algorithm that fits all. With the expansion of business avenues, small and big enterprises alike, each patron expands and challenges their amenability to mold the technology to their needs. While they have marked themselves today in the field of entertainment, news, and sports, the team at Toch aspires to allocate their AI and ML technologies towards safety and security, healthcare, and education in the future.

“Disrupt video technology by automating workflow using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms thereby reducing go-to-market time and costs and increasing ROI for clients” has been Toch's mission, which is both possible and plausible with its team of innovators.

The startup also sees itself building an immutable community that drives a profitable economy while creating newer standards for the tech environment.

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Toch - Industry Details

We are sitting on a tsunami of video content that is growing every minute. As per Global Video AI Market data, the growth is taking place at supersonic speed. Statistics show that the market for short-form video content is expected to be at $169.4bn by the year 2025, and $223.98bn by 2028 (Grand View Research, Inc) with an anticipated CAGR of 21% from 2021 to 2028. As flag bearers of the industry, Toch has the vantage to predict industry demands and possesses the evolutionary AI tools that can deliver groundbreaking and trendsetting solutions at the same time. Analytically in the coming years, the startup would be able to sell across 4 different continents with its repertoire and sizable market shares. Toch functions worldwide with a focus on India, North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.

Toch - Idea & Inspiration

In the year 2016, the founders were sitting at the brink of an undiscovered potential industry that had seen a mighty rise in video content. With human attention span and patience shrinking, there was a dire need to address the video trajectory in respect to real-time. To bridge that gaping hole between unaddressed content and commerce, the potential was immense. It was almost like the ‘light bulb’ moment when Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil formed a SaaS company deploying  AI and ML technology that deliberated on an easy-to-use and accessible to all, a cloud-agnostic platform to deliver customized video content in real-time, thereby birthing TOCH AI.

While the founders and other enthusiasts were gung-ho with the projected idea, the main challenge was to integrate a team that would help them to discover the iceberg. Their enthusiastic team helped in molding the idea into a product that disrupted the video content industry. The response was overwhelming and helped the founding team forge ahead, setting a benchmark in the market.

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Toch - Product and USP

Toch's product is conceptualized to create epic content that leaves an impact using ingenuity and precision. Toch delivers well-crafted content through AI and ML algorithms in real-time. Creating personalized content has been a brainbox that has greatly appealed to the sport, entertainment, and news industry. Grafting content from raw footage into bite-sized videos in the form of key highlights that hyperbolize the pivotal moments across 30+ social platforms.

Its video editing options, retool and optimize videos in real-time; saving time, labor, negating human error whilst increasing productivity. It is an easy-to-use technology with illimitable resizing of videos that have diverse displays, customizable with client logos, bumpers, and sponsors messages on the dashboard. It renders multiple video formatting, scheduling feeds, innumerable web storage options that offer API and platform models, and multiple publishing renditions.

USP of Toch AI

Toch's USP is its premium video editing feature that facilitates the patrons with automatic dynamic engagements and insertions to create their own bespoke videos. The team at Toch AI understands one standard solution does not fit all, hence it is imperative to go beyond conventional. Thinking ahead of time and ascertaining a client’s needs, thereby amplifying it with a cutting-edge solution defines vertical innovation.

Idea Pivot

At the genesis of anything, challenges are but obvious. Toch was no different, the founders faced practical challenges that just helped them address and reinvent their own technology. Since they focussed on state-of-the-art technology, it was an intricate process of evolving while remaining grounded to the core product. In their case, "our asset was our team", which helped them with the critical process.

Toch's final product was by itself a marketing and branding tool. When presented on different platforms, Toch was received as a welcome change. Employing cutting-edge technology such as Face and Image Recognition, Vision models, Optical Character Recognition, and Audio Detection, saved immense manual labor, erased the scope of error and time consumption phenomenally with a latency of only 10 seconds or less in real-time without altering the resolution of the feed.

Change is essential for growth, so is adaptability. Every person is a potential patron and what may work for one may not satiate the other. Hence malleability and personalization to fit each line of business are vital.

Toch - Founders and Team

Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil are the founders of Toch.

Vinayak Shrivastav | Co-founder & CEO, Toch

He has a background in engineering and an MBA from London Business School. Vinayak directs Toch towards unique identity, growth plans, strategies, and execution. With Toch.AI, he envisions revolutionizing sports viewership by leveraging AI and ML technology to create real-time personalized content. He firmly believes that “everyone has stories to tell’ – stories that will not only engage, inform, surprise, delight, and impact their audience, but will also deliver on measurable business goals. In his personal time, Vinayak is an avid sports fan and can often be found cheering and rooting for his favorite team.

Alok Patil | Co-founder & CTO, Toch

He is the ‘Torvalds’ of Toch. He is industrious and loves challenges. Accredited with an MCA, his vision is to resolve humongous problems faced by humanity through technology. To quote him, “the world needs more technology-enabled solutions focussed at modernizing human efforts”. He believes that there is never an end to learning and motivates the team to experiment with new ideas. Alok is a vehement advocate of short-form content and a web series buff.

Saket Dandotia | Co-founder & COO, Toch

He is the operational brain behind the technology. His data-first approach ensures Toch is at the top of the game. With skills he picked from the IIM Indore, Saket is the bridge between technology and the market. His grit is focused on harnessing AI-powered disruption in the media space. Exploring the scope of AI in the future is his favorite pastime. Mentoring in Hong Kong Technical University, IIT Indore, and IIM Indore, he seeks to inspire Gen Next.

Toch Team

Since its inception in 2016, Toch has been growing exponentially with a manpower of 60+ personnel across countries. Its team is task-oriented through liberal leadership. As cliche as it sounds, but the founders believe in team building and bonding. Empathy and motivation are synonymous with that idea. At Toch, people understand diversity at its best and use it as a force for synchronous output.

Toch - Name and Logo

The name was thought of from the point of view of “touching” as many lives by cutting through the clutter and personalizing content. This evolved into TOCH only due to the availability of domain names. The logo was created in unison with the brand name.

Toch - Business Model & Revenue Model

Toch is a SaaS platform and offers different subscription options for its clients. Its business model includes API integration and easy-to-use dashboard services.

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Toch - Launch and Marketing Strategies

Toch's product has proved its mettle, it has been its own brand ambassador of viability and productivity. The numbers give a fair picture of its joyous sustenance (as of Oct'21) -

• 12.9M+ videos scanned
• 1.2B+ hours of video processing time saved
• 72% increase in viewer time spent on videos
• 8.3X increase in viewer engagement rate

The startup's marketing strategy is split into brand marketing and event focussed marketing. With a global b2b target market, social media and digital marketing play a crucial role. Its campaigns focus on thought leadership through podcasts, webinars, and fire-side chats along with event campaigns focussed on the actual benefits of AI technology in the media industry.

Toch - Funding

On October 13, 2021, Toch announced an $11.75 million Series A funding by Moneta Ventures, Baring Private Equity India, Binny Bansal, Ventureast, 9 Unicorns, Anthill Ventures, Cathexis Ventures, SOSV, Artesian, and Innoven Capital (backed by Temasek and United overseas bank).

The funding will be used to scale up technology infrastructure and venture expansion into global markets with a specific focus on foreign markets.

Arul Mehra, Partner at Baring Private Equity India, said, “We believe that AI can make a lot of difference to how content is generated and consumed. Toch.ai is equipped with top notch technology & team which is greatly contributing to the revolution seen in the video sector. Thus we see this as a huge opportunity to be a part of this change as we partner with Vinayak & the team as they chart out the journey towards becoming leaders in the video-tech space.”

The company has raised around $13.3 mn in funding over 7 funding rounds.

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Toch - Partnerships

• Toch.ai has announced a partnership with USA cricket on December 23, 2021. This partnership aims to bring all the action from the field so that the fans don't regret missing out on the best moments from the Dafabet USA vs. Ireland Men’s International Series 2021 that began on December 22, 2021, in Florida
• Toch has been the official partner of the Indian Premier League that was truncated due to the ongoing pandemic.

The Mumbai-based interactive video shopping platform has also earlier been the official partner of the Australian Open. Furthermore, Toch.ai also frequently collaborates with numerous OTT platforms.    

Toch - Recognition & Achievements

• Recognized as Best AI startup 2021 by Franchise India and Entrepreneur Media.
• Recognized as Nasscom AI Game Changers for the category 'Computer Vision Award' for accelerating India with innovation in 2021.
• Co-founder and CEO, Vinayak Shrivastav recognized as 30 UNDER 30 Disruptor by BW Businessworld 2021
• Co-founder and CEO, Vinayak Shrivastav was recognized as The Most Promising Entrepreneur by 'The Economic Times Promising Entrepreneurs of India' 2021.
• Co-founder and COO, Saket Dandotia was recognized as the winner of Exchange4Media's Digital 40 under 40 awards 2021 (public announcement pending).

Toch - Current Growth and Future Plans

Toch has grown from strength to strength over the past couple of years and added many of the big banner broadcasters and OTTs to its portfolio. Although success is relative, partnering for the Indian Premier League, Champions League, and Australian Open events with top OTT broadcasters has defined its learning and experience curve.

Toch is levitating towards extensive engagements and making its mark with AI and ML-based technology in video editing. The applications for this technology can be used in the future for better healthcare services, safety, and security solutions, and education. Its future plans involve a deep dive into the entertainment and news industries and the application of AI-led technologies to create personalized content for its clients.

Toch - FAQs

What is Toch AI?

Toch AI is a SaaS company with cloud-agnostic AI solutions. It offers professional services by taking noisy, large data sets and transforming them into engrossing and compelling hyper-global videos.

Who are the founders of Toch?

Vinayak S, Saket Dandotia, and Alok Patil founded Toch in 2016.

Is Toch an Indian Company?

Yes. Toch is an Indian company headquartered in Mumbai, India. However, Toch functions worldwide with a focus on India, North America, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.

How does Toch make money?

Toch is a SaaS platform and offers different subscription options for its clients.

What is Toch's USP?

The USP of Toch is its premium video editing feature that facilitates the patrons with automatic dynamic engagements and insertions to create their own bespoke videos.