Clayton-based Invisibly in July launched a new app designed to reward users who complete surveys and provide access to their shopping data. The new app comes as Invisibly has “sunset” its news-focused product after it struggled to gain traction from users, said Invisibly President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Orlowski.
McKelvey, who co-founded payments company Block (NYSE: SQ), unveiled Invisibly in 2017 after being recruited by media executives to develop technology that could help publishers better monetize content and engage audiences. Founders Fund, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm led by Peter Thiel, is an investor in Invisibly.
Invisibly in 2022 created a mobile app that gave consumers free access to news articles, allowing them to earn points by answering surveys and sharing the app with others, redeeming the points to access news articles without paywalls and advertisements. Its media partners included Associated Press and select cities of Sacramento-based newspaper publisher The McClatchy Co. Invisibly over the years had tinkered with other formats, including a digital wallet that could be used to access content as they surfed the internet, to test with publishers and consumers.
Orlowski said Invisibly’s news app struggled with user retention, especially as the content it provided competed for attention with short-form video platforms TikTok and YouTube.
“We have a generation of people that just don’t read longform anymore unfortunately,” he said.
However, through its news app, Invisibly discovered users were willing to provide access to their data through survey and credit card transaction data, influencing the company’s decision to pivot to its new product, said Orlowski. Invisibly began its pivot to its new focus about a year and a half ago, spending the ensuing period testing the idea and building its new app.
Invisibly’s new app allows its users to earn rewards, including gift cards, from brands for answering surveys and providing access to data from bank and credit card accounts. Airbnb, Target and Southwest Airlines are among the brands providing rewards on the app. Invisibly generates revenue through advertising services and consumer research it provides to brands. Orlowski said Invisibly’s annual revenue is growing about 40% per year and is expected to reach $10 million this year. The tech firm has 24 employees, with about half based in St. Louis.
With its new app, Invisibly has also set its sight on using artificial intelligence to boost consumer reach and surveying. Orlowski said Invisibly wants to use survey data it collects to create so-called “synthetic persona” that would use artificial intelligence to generate new surveying data based on personas created from previous data it received from users. Orlowski said research on synthetic personas has generated concerns about the trustworthiness of the surveying data and the models being up to date to current events. But if done correctly, Orlowski said he believes Invisibly could create a “big wedge in the marketplace,” creating a “polling and insights tool that is 10 times faster, 10 times cheaper that spits out perfectly structured usable data.”
