As document sharing has transitioned from walking a manila envelope down
the hall to e-mailing a digital image, document viewing has become a
complicated task. With hundreds of file types and varying security
measures, it's hard to be sure your document will get where it's going
and will be read when it gets there. Manayunk software firm
Vuzit
designed the DocuPub platform to simplify the process, allowing
companies to view documents of all file types safely and securely, over a
cloud-based server system that can even be read on mobile devices.
Founded by former
Traffic.com
employees Chris Cera and Brent Matzelle, Vuzit has drawn recent
investments from
Ben Franklin Technology Partners and
Robin Hood Ventures, allowing Vuzit to make some upgrades. This month, the
company announced it will be using the investment to add advanced search
capabilities over the whole cloud or within document files. The company
also plans to add search engine optimization.
"Chris and Brent
saw that, as people wanted to send more and more files over the
internet, they were going to want to do more than just send PDF files
around, without having any idea what people were doing with the files,"
says Board Advisor Coley Brown.
With investment in place, Vuzit
hopes not only to upgrade its software but its staff as well, looking to
hire three to five new engineers and development professionals over the
next sixty days. With these investments, Vuzit hopes to expand
DocuPub's versatility, adding more file types (it allows 40 already) and
allowing an ease of use not yet available.
"Most people turn
everything into PDFs but in many cases, it's a pain or there are
conversion problems," says Brown. "What most people would rather do is
say 'here is my Visio file and even though you never paid for Visio,
don't have a license for it, you can see it as if you did."
Source: Coley Brown, Vuzit
Writer: John Steele