In the days after the serial entrepreneur Ben Kaufman exited from his retail store startup CAMP early last year, he found himself in Walmart’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas meeting with a fellow tech founder he had partnered with years earlier. Before CAMP, Kaufman had also founded consumer startups Mophie, Quirky and Homesick Candles, and held exec roles at BuzzFeed. Now, he was looking for inspiration on what he might pursue next.
The fellow entrepreneur was Yoni Bloch, an Israeli musical artist who in 2010 had founded a video tech startup now known as Eko, which Kaufman’s companies partnered with in the past. In its early years, Eko (formerly Interlude) was supposed to disrupt the entertainment business by creating technology that enabled interactive features like choose-your-own adventure type customization of videos for online viewers. As a result, it attracted strategic investors like MGM Studios and Warner Music Group, in addition to venture players like Intel Capital and Sequoia Capital’s former Israel-focused fund.
