fantag is latest bay area company reeled in by greater sacramento

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​Fantag, the developer of a mobile video platform, is the latest company the Greater Sacramento Economic Council has lured from the Bay Area to Sacramento.

Fantag, the developer of a mobile video platform, is the latest company the Greater Sacramento Economic Council has lured from the Bay Area to Sacramento.

Fantag plans to base its executive staff in I/O Lab's innovation center at 7th and J streets, while maintaining an office with three employees in Palo Alto, the council and Fantag executives said Wednesday at a press conference.​The company, which has raised $1.5 million in seed capital from investors, provides a platform that allows users to capture and share live events with a mobile phone. Fantag has a patent pending for its technology that "synchronizes mobile phones with camera feeds" and expects to tap into the live sports market.

During the most recent funding round, the company raised $1.1 million from investors and advisers that include Folsom-based venture capital firm Moneta Ventures; Scott Cutler, president of the event ticket exchange StubHub;members of the ownership group of the Sacramento Kings; and John Stone, co-founder of Folsom-based educational software maker PowerSchool, according to Cheryl Beninga, Fantag's chief operating officer.

The company plans to hire three more people to join its executive staff in Sacramento, Beninga said. She said Fantag also plans additional hiring later this year, but did not say how many more it would bring on.

Company founder Brian Dombrowski said the basic concept of his platform is that it will allow fans to relive any moment of a live sporting event with "the tap of a button," whether it's a Kings game or Little League Baseball. Dombrowski said the replay events don't necessarily have to be shot by a television network, as anyone shooting video can capture footage and share it with other app users.
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Dombrowski thought of the idea after working as a videographer for the San Jose Sharks and San Jose State University. The company currently has a beta site at fantag.us with a launch expected in mid-2017.
Dombrowski plans to move to the Sacramento area by early March. "From a personal standpoint, I love the pace of action out here and I think there's a lot of talent that we can tap into and help make this place extra special," he said.

Fantag's recruitment to Sacramento is the latest success in the Great Sacramento Economic Council's efforts to attract 200 startups to the region over the next decade. Since last summer, GSEC has also helped recruit SupportPay, the developer of an app to facilitate child-support payments, and digital media firm Parrable Inc. from the Bay Area.

GSEC CEO Barry Broome said he met Dombrowski about 15 months ago in the Bay Area, and encouraged him to come to Sacramento. “It needs to start somewhere, where it can get a soft landing, so I/O Labs is a great example of a group of people who are giving soft landings to companies,” Broome said. “The company comes in and gets a soft landing. And then our organization helps them with the initial round, and we introduce them to go-to-market partners.”

I/O Labs CEO Brandon Weber said there are “a couple dozen” tech companies and startups lined up to have their office space at I/O Labs when the innovation center opens by summer. The location will also host 20 startups in a new accelerator program which is being co-funded by Moneta Ventures.