Pivo Breaks Past Its Kickstarter Funding Goal in Less Than 15 Hours

On Nov. 13, 2018, Pivo officially launched globally on Kickstarter and within the first 15 hours, the campaign was 100% funded by over 200 backers worldwide. In less than 48 hours the campaign doubled that by exceeding 200% of the original funding target goal.

"With still about 50 days left in the Kickstarter campaign, this is good news for all smartphone photographers and videographers," said an official of the K-ICT Born2Global Centre, a Korean government agency that provides support for startups to expand into global markets. The center provides support for YouVR, the company that has developed the Pivo interactive smart pod to help people take pictures with their smartphones more easily.

When the project first began, the founding team behind Pivo were motivated by one mission: to build a smart pod that can enable anyone with a smartphone to create highly dynamic interactive videos, images and GIFs in an easy and affordable way. Professional photography budgets were out of the question for everyday content creators but the team behind Pivo believed that everybody deserves access to create professional quality contents.

The mission to unlock the full potential of smartphone cameras came very naturally. Companies like Apple and Samsung continue to give everyday users access to truly unbelievable hardware but much of it goes unused. With Pivo, this is no longer the case as it takes full advantage of the powerhouse of modern hardware. Pivo seeks to change the way that people interact with their phones in a big way while also providing industry specific tools making it a true necessity for anyone interested in smartphone photography and videography.

Pivo for Real Estate is the birth child of a strategic partnership between Pivo and YouVR, a VR tours and marketing solution. With VR tours attracting nearly 10x the engagement online Pivo’s partnership with YouVR gives access to create 360 VR tours in the most comprehensive and simple workflow to date. Just use Pivo to capture, upload to YouVR and share the tour -- all on a mobile device.

Furthermore, Pivo expands its capabilities with another powerful partnership -- this time with Restream.io, the world's best multistream platform allowing users to stream their contents on over 30+ channels simultaneously. Through Restream x Pivo, users can see, on average, 7x the audience reach than that of a traditional single platform live session. Also, what was once a still camera live stream is now made dynamic with face tracking, object tracking and smartcapture. Restream also gives users localized reach like never before. Through integration with regional streaming services in countries like India, China and Russia, users can now stream their content to otherwise unreachable viewers.

“Pivo is more than a new accessory for mobile photographers: it’s a true Swiss Army knife to take your smartphone photography to a new level,” said Provideo Coalition, an award winning platform for the industry’s top professionals. That’s because Pivo has over 13 features integrated into its hardware and software to help unlock the full potential for your smartphone content creations.

So what can you actually do with Pivo’s capturing modes? Versus mode automatically pans back and forth between two subjects to easily create a rap-battle like video or gif. 50/50 is half video and half photo. First take a photo, then Pivo will pivot just enough to give you room for a seamless video. Essentially a super easy cinemagraph. DoubleTake is an easy way to generate meme-ready gifs or video to tell a story in seconds. ManyMe lets users be a part of the panorama over and over again. Take a panoramic photo all around Pivo then let Pivo clone you and your friends into one image. Capture mode packs smart features like “Smartcapture” to interact with Pivo with your voice or gesture. Motion Timelapse makes the most dynamic timelapse possible from a mobile. Let Pivo capture a video in 360, 180 or 120 degrees and create a timelapse to show the world passing across a panorama. Panorama is a feature that Pivo was originally designed to create. Automated capturing and rotation means professional quality panoramas taken easily from a mobile. No more unnatural photo stitching with duplicate heads or missing arms. Flash can blur two videos together. Play catch with yourself or become a superhero with Pivo. TinyPlanet on a mobile device has never been so simple. No need for expensive hardware or software like photoshop to create tiny planet images. Facefollow can detect your face and follow users around like your personal cameraman. Object Tracking can help users create even more dynamic contents flexibly by tracking things like vehicles. Restream and Pivo have partnered up to give users access to over 30 of the top live streaming platforms. Not only this but users can multistream across these platforms while using pivo’s interactive features like Facefollow.

Pivo also comes with an alternate rotating head which allows any smartphone to not only rotate, but tilt angles. An included remote control also gives users greater control with Pivo. For serious flexibility, the team behind Pivo have developed their mobile app to be open source so users can decide how they want Pivo to work for them.

Kickstarter Rewards

The campaign launched on Nov. 13, 2018 and will run until Jan. 10, 2019. Rewards range from US$79 to US$110 depending on the number of add-ons. Pivo is expected to retail for $138 which includes the Pivo body, the app, an adjustment head, a remote and a travel case.