Laffster Rebrands With New Name "Cogo"
Santa Monica, CA (PRWEB) February 11, 2014 -- Laffster (http://www.laffster.com), the discovery platform and community helping comedians engage superfans, today announced its rebrand to Cogo (http://www.cogo.tv). Cogo expands to include entertainment verticals beyond comedy, further connecting artists and fans around projects and causes. Cogo is where live streaming meets crowdfunding to enable artists to quickly raise money for causes and projects they are passionate about by doing what they do best, showcasing and sharing their talent. Upcoming interactive live streaming shows include the cast of GLEE, Ken Burns, Fred Armisen, John Oliver and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of The Roots.
In just six months, fans around the world have tuned into nearly 100 shows to raise money for a variety of causes and projects. Whether artists live streamed pre-planned shows from venues, or put on impromptu live streamed conversations from their living rooms, celebrities took advantage of the ability to connect with their superfans by offering unique personal items for sale or engaging fans with unprecedented personal conversations. Some success stories to date include:
• Jimmy Pardo, alongside Zach Galifianakis, Jon Hamm and Patton Oswalt helped raise over $140,000 for Smile Train in just 12 hours.
• Walking The Room hosts Greg Behrendt and Dave Anthony raised over $3,300 in only an hour for their podcast while live streaming from the back of a comic book store.
• Timothy DeLaGhetto, one of YouTube’s top personalities helped raise over $9,000 in 90 minutes for the Philippines and World Food Programme.
With its proof of concept in comedy, Cogo will now expand to include actors, authors, musicians and athletes on the platform. Cogo’s first ever interactive experience with celebrities enables them to quickly raise money for causes and projects in significantly less time than traditional crowdfunding sites.
“We recognized a massive opportunity to connect superfans with their favorite artists, and saw a chance to leverage live streaming technology with crowdfunding to give fans never-before seen access to celebrities,” said Daniel Altmann, co-founder and CEO of Cogo. “Cogo is the first effective way for artists to rally audiences around a cause or a project and effect immediate change.”
Fans simply visit http://www.Cogo.tv to watch an artists’ show where they can interact with the artist in real-time via Twitter and can also purchase rewards predetermined by the artist. Rewards range from a personal call to signed merchandise and everything in between. Previously successful rewards included a signed Ke$ha t-shirt from Zach Galifianakis as well as writing the donors’ names into comedy sketches on Conan.
“Cogo is a powerful community rallying around celebrities favorite causes and funding upcoming projects in a way crowdfunding platforms haven’t witnessed before,” said William Hsu, co-founder and Managing Partner of MuckerLab. “They are transforming the crowdfunding industry and creating a totally new, innovative model that changes the traditional telethon approach to create an interactive experience.”
Members from the cast of Emmy Award winning FOX series GLEE (including Dianna Agron, Darren Criss and Dot Marie Jones) will be joining forces to raise money for Young Storytellers Foundation through a live show streamed on Cogo happening on February 22, 2014. Next month, Cogo will live stream One-on-One to support 826NYC's free writing and literacy programs. The event will feature live conversations between Ken Burns and Kurt Andersen, John Oliver and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, Fred Armisen and the Audience, with Masha Gessen, music by Robyn Hitchcock and more guests to be announced.
About Cogo
Cogo (formerly Laffster) is where live streaming meets crowdfunding to enable artists (actors, comedians, musicians, etc.) to quickly raise money for causes and projects they are passionate about by doing what they do best, showcasing and sharing their talent. It is the first native crowdfunding platform to be built with an interactive experience in mind. Cogo has raised $750k to date from world-class investors including MuckerLab, Adam Nash (CEO of Wealthfront), Howard Lindzon (StockTwits), Chris Williams (Chief Audience Officer of Maker Studios), Greylock Partners and Paradigm Talent Agency, among others. Cogo was founded by Daniel Altmann and Eric Posen, originally as Laffster in 2012 and is based in Santa Monica, CA with a team of five employees. For more information, please visit http://www.cogo.tv.
Leesa Oberholzer, Moxie Communications Group, 310-383-4786, [email protected]
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