A fledging Birmingham technology company which counts Sky and Manchester City FC among its clients is planning to raise up to £750,000 in development capital to support a launch of its product in the US.
VoxPopMe was founded in January 2013 by Dave Carruthers and has created a tool which businesses can use to gauge customer opinion.
Members of the public downloaded the VoxPopMe app and answer companies' question by recording short feedback videos for which they received a small payment.
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Once a video has been created, users can then say whether it is to be kept private by the client or can be made public such as via YouTube and Facebook.
Mr Carruthers told the Post the app, which went live 12 months ago, is capable of capturing up to 100 separate video opinions in an hour and he was now keen to develop the technology and launch outside of the 海角视频.
"We initially raised £550,000 for the launch from private investors and my own personal investment but we are now going out to the wider market and technology investors with the funding to be used for three key areas," he said.
"We're keen to develop the technology and platforms, we want to expand into the US as we're just in the 海角视频 at the moment and we want to grow our team from our current staff of four."
Recent projects the company has run include for telecommunications giant EE, which wanted to test out a new TV advert, and the Daily Express newspaper which was keen to hear public opinions on Romanian immigration.
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VoxPopMe is based in the Custard Factory and shares an office with One Result, the digital creative agency Mr Carruthers set up four years ago.
Since its launch, 18,000 people have downloaded the app with 50 per cent of those recording videos.
It has also been named 'app of the week' by both The Sun and Daily Star and the company recently travelled to the Next Web Conference in Amsterdam after being selected as one of Europe's the most promising start-ups.
Mr Carruthers said: "It's a great medium for bringing the consumer to life and we started the business to see how we could transform the traditional vox pop of sending out a reporter or camera crew onto the street.
"We found some of the users can be very 'British' and a bit reserved about taking on camera but things are slowly changing and it doesn't seem to affect or impede their judgement. Some users simply don't hold back in their opinions."
He added: "At the moment, we're focussing on English speaking markets but with more and more western companies looking to break into Asia, this will increasingly become a key area as brands grow and grow on that continent."
Mr Carruthers said he was spending more and more time down in London as many of the firm's clients were down there and he would look to open a sales office in the capital during the next year.
He added that he was keen to retain the development and admin teams in Birmingham by adding a further five team members over the next year.