california key people david binetti jason putorti matt snider co founders products consumer technology company revenue n a website http votizen.com votizen is a consumer technology company that is developing an online network of voters in the united states . based in mountain view california the site allows its members which it calls votizens to learn about issues and elections and take collective action with other committed voters through social media . 1 votizen verifies that each voice belongs to a real voter in the real world . 2 as of 2012 votizen has mapped out over a million connections between voters on votizen . contents 1 history 2 leveraging social media 3 references 4 external links history edit votizen was founded by david binetti jason putorti and matt snider in march 2010 . the catalyst for votizen s growth sprung from the success of a twitter campaign in 2010 in support of the startup visa where thousands of people tweeted their support of the bill and votizen delivered the messages to the appropriate people . in september 2010 votizen announced it had raised 1.5 million in funding led by peter thiel and sean parker of founders fund with participating investors including 500 startups david cowan keith rabois ron conway mark goines founder collective felicis ventures pivotnorth steve blank eric ries shervin pishevar and tom shields . 3 on september 14 2011 votizen conducted the first virtual precinct walk with san franciscans for jobs and good government a committee supporting san francisco mayoral candidate ed lee . votizen was attempting to bring the door to door walking in support of candidates to the 21st century by allowing registered voters to express their support for ed lee and ask their friends to pledge to vote for ed lee . votizen plans to have their virtual precinct walks boost voter participation and play a big role in the 2012 elections . 4 randi zuckerberg former marketing director at facebook spoke about votizen s virtual precinct walk and believed the virtual precinct walk has the potential to turn conventional campaigning on its head and inspire more people to vote . 5 on september 27 2011 votizen won every award in the social media disruptathon at the washington post building in washington dc . votizen won in the categories of best presentation uniqueness design most disruptive potential most liked and best in show . votizen competed against a field of nineteen other startups . 6 in february 2012 votizen announced a 750 000 convertible funding round led by sean parker with celebrity investors including ashton kutcher guy oseary and lady gaga s manager troy carter investing as well . 7 on march 12 2012 at the south by southwest festival in austin tx ; al gore and votizen investor sean parker spoke about the internet s effect on politics and votizen s potential role in politics with gore saying democracy has been hacked by money and special interests and tools such as votizen can provide the fix . 8 on january 10 2013 votizen was acquired by causes an online civic engagement platform founded by sean parker . 9 leveraging social media edit sean parker co founder of napster and facebook s founding president is an investor in votizen and a director on the board of the company . parker talking during the 2011 techonomy conference said politics for me is the most obvious area to be disrupted by the web . parker who said he s not a huge believer in direct democracy is exploring ways to leverage social media to influence politics with investments such as votizen . his prediction is that taking money out of politics with campaigns is possible through social media . with services like votizen . 10 11 references edit shah semil . the next mass consumer social wave political expression . techcrunch . sams henry . communicating with elected officials simplified with votizen . tech cocktail . kincaid jason . votizen raises 1.5 million to make sure government representatives hear your voice . techcrunch . quinn michelle . new tool mines social networks potential . politico . perez sarah . votizen launches virtual precinct walk for san francisco mayor ed lee s election . techcrunch . moran marcia . clean sweep for votizen at social media disruptathon . modern dc business . gannes liz . votizen gets a celebrity round of funding to connect social media and politics . all things d. retrieved 17 april 2012 . franzen carl . al gore and sean parker promote voter website votizen at sxsw . talking points memo . retrieved 17 april 2012 . constine josh . causes acquires votizen to democratize democracy . techcrunch . simonite tom . five interesting things sean parker said yesterday . mit . burke adrienne november 19 2011 . sean parker and jim breyer predict the industries social media will reinvent next . forbes . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title votizen & oldid 694570849 categories companies based in mountain view californiasocial networking servicesinternet properties established in 2010 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 10 december 2015 at 02 31 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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