Founder and CEO Erik Swain flanked by Respondology’s tech. (BusinessDen illustration)
In 2019, Erik Swain knew he had to pivot from a career in digital advertising.
When the head of product at his agency showed him a post of Serena Williams and her child, he was horrified.
“Just the abuse in the comment section, with the baby, Serena, the N-word, you name it,” he said.
As he started to look at other posts and social media ads, he saw similar things.
“With this emotional imperative and business imperative,” he said, “we realized we could build a company that could be commercially viable.”
The following year, he launched Respondology, a software company that moderates comment sections using artificial intelligence.
Now he has $5 million more to show for it, with the backing of Louisville-based Iron Gate Capital, along with Boulder Heavy Industries, SJF Ventures, Zelkova Ventures and RLB Holdings. The same group also invested $11 million in 2023.
Respondology’s flagship product, Moderate, has helped 450 brands with a combined 1 billion followers solve spam and abuse in their comment sections, Swain said. Clients including GoPro, the Denver Broncos and all University of Colorado athletic accounts have been cleared of 35 million inflammatory remarks during the company’s five-year lifespan.
Moderate uses a three-pronged system of keywords, artificial intelligence and some humans to weed out homophobia and racism. It understands hate across every language known to man, including Morse code and the fictional Klingon speech from “Star Trek.”
“If it’s been said or heard or read, the AI knows about it,” Swain said.
While the comment police business won’t go away, Swain said Respondology will spend much of the recent round on building out other sides of the business.
“We’re going from a moderation company to a comment activation platform, which means we are getting companies the most out of their social streams,” he said.
Respondology launched a second tool, Discover, early last year. It compiles information on social media reactions on the accounts of both clients and their competitors.
“(Most brands) have junior people spending days reading comments, writing summaries and handing it in to execs,” Swain said. “We literally got them that same report in 30 seconds.”
A third product, Respond, will make its debut toward the end of next year. It automates responses, such as answers to simple questions or sends hearts back to a happy customer.
“It’s so that brands can engage audiences and the social stream,” Swain said. “They pay junior people to send out hearts and likes (right now). They can’t keep up with the scale.”
With the social media ad spend projected to be around $280 billion and grow 10% each of the next several years, Swain believes Respondology’s two new prongs can help maximize those ballooning budgets.
In a sample test of 96 brands 180 days before and after using Moderate, the companies got an average 7% higher return on their $1.3 billion combined investment and a 33% decrease in the cost per click.
Respondology’s clients sign one-year contracts and pay a flat fee from the low thousands to high six figures, depending on how many accounts and followers they have, Swain said.
Two-thirds of them are consumer product brands, and the others comprise teams across the NBA, NFL, NHL and Premier League in England.
About half of Swain’s 37 employees live in the Denver/Boulder area, and he plans to hire 10 to 12 more engineers to build out Respondology’s tech. The company has been growing between 50% and 60% each year, and the hope is to grow to command every comment section in the world.
“There’s a big problem to solve here,” Swain said. “We just raised $5 million, and our investors want us to go fast. We’ll worry about profitability later.”
Founder and CEO Erik Swain flanked by Respondology’s tech. (BusinessDen illustration)
In 2019, Erik Swain knew he had to pivot from a career in digital advertising.
When the head of product at his agency showed him a post of Serena Williams and her child, he was horrified.
“Just the abuse in the comment section, with the baby, Serena, the N-word, you name it,” he said.
As he started to look at other posts and social media ads, he saw similar things.
“With this emotional imperative and business imperative,” he said, “we realized we could build a company that could be commercially viable.”
The following year, he launched Respondology, a software company that moderates comment sections using artificial intelligence.
Now he has $5 million more to show for it, with the backing of Louisville-based Iron Gate Capital, along with Boulder Heavy Industries, SJF Ventures, Zelkova Ventures and RLB Holdings. The same group also invested $11 million in 2023.
Respondology’s flagship product, Moderate, has helped 450 brands with a combined 1 billion followers solve spam and abuse in their comment sections, Swain said. Clients including GoPro, the Denver Broncos and all University of Colorado athletic accounts have been cleared of 35 million inflammatory remarks during the company’s five-year lifespan.
Moderate uses a three-pronged system of keywords, artificial intelligence and some humans to weed out homophobia and racism. It understands hate across every language known to man, including Morse code and the fictional Klingon speech from “Star Trek.”
“If it’s been said or heard or read, the AI knows about it,” Swain said.
While the comment police business won’t go away, Swain said Respondology will spend much of the recent round on building out other sides of the business.
“We’re going from a moderation company to a comment activation platform, which means we are getting companies the most out of their social streams,” he said.
Respondology launched a second tool, Discover, early last year. It compiles information on social media reactions on the accounts of both clients and their competitors.
“(Most brands) have junior people spending days reading comments, writing summaries and handing it in to execs,” Swain said. “We literally got them that same report in 30 seconds.”
A third product, Respond, will make its debut toward the end of next year. It automates responses, such as answers to simple questions or sends hearts back to a happy customer.
“It’s so that brands can engage audiences and the social stream,” Swain said. “They pay junior people to send out hearts and likes (right now). They can’t keep up with the scale.”
With the social media ad spend projected to be around $280 billion and grow 10% each of the next several years, Swain believes Respondology’s two new prongs can help maximize those ballooning budgets.
In a sample test of 96 brands 180 days before and after using Moderate, the companies got an average 7% higher return on their $1.3 billion combined investment and a 33% decrease in the cost per click.
Respondology’s clients sign one-year contracts and pay a flat fee from the low thousands to high six figures, depending on how many accounts and followers they have, Swain said.
Two-thirds of them are consumer product brands, and the others comprise teams across the NBA, NFL, NHL and Premier League in England.
About half of Swain’s 37 employees live in the Denver/Boulder area, and he plans to hire 10 to 12 more engineers to build out Respondology’s tech. The company has been growing between 50% and 60% each year, and the hope is to grow to command every comment section in the world.
“There’s a big problem to solve here,” Swain said. “We just raised $5 million, and our investors want us to go fast. We’ll worry about profitability later.”
