Medal Secures $13 Million Funding to Launch Contextual AI App Highlight
Medal, a startup known for its innovative video game clipping technology, has successfully secured $13 million in funding, achieving a valuation of $333 million. This investment comes from notable backers, including Horizons Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Peak6, and Arcadia Investment Partners.
In conjunction with this funding round, Medal has introduced Highlight, a groundbreaking cross-platform desktop application designed as a contextual AI assistant. Highlight captures real-time content from users’ screens, enabling them to interact with a sophisticated language model (LLM) based on the context presented.
Henry Gladwyn, a partner at OMERS Ventures, shared insights during a call, outlining the venture firm's perspective on leveraging Medal’s core technology in tandem with LLMs. "The essence of Medal's technology revolves around comprehending what’s occurring on a user’s device—be it video, audio, or surrounding content. Initially utilized for clipping, Medal is now adapting this technology for LLMs to enhance prompting capabilities, which is a brilliant application," Gladwyn stated.
Gladwyn envisions Medal not just as a gaming solution but as a tool for capturing the finest moments of digital life, with Highlight serving as a natural extension of this vision.
How Highlight Works
Over time, various companies have attempted to develop effective assistants that utilize on-screen information. Google has made strides with Google Now, Google Assistant, and its latest Gemini platform. Apple also ventured into the space with Apple Intelligence, showcasing on-screen contextual analysis at the recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Microsoft is integrating generative AI through features such as Windows Recall, aimed at helping users rediscover previously viewed content, although its launch has been postponed.
Highlight seeks to provide this functionality specifically for desktop users. Currently, the app operates as a floating button on the desktop. When the icon is hovered over, it captures screen content and relays it as context for various AI models. Users can pose questions using different tools, including ChatGPT, Claude from Anthropic, Perplexity, and others.
Highlight also pre-populates potential questions based on the chosen model to facilitate engagement. Importantly, the app performs local capture and does not retain any content. Medal is developing its own assistant similar to ChatGPT, which may be less powerful than cloud-based alternatives for certain tasks but could eventually function directly on the user's device.
In addition to screen capture, Highlight can process documents and system audio memory to enhance user experience. To support audio functionality, Medal is creating a local transcription tool for meetings, similar to offerings such as Granola and Krisp.
Developing Highlight
Pim de Witte, co-founder of Medal, noted during the call that the idea for integrating Medal.tv’s clipping technology with AI emerged last year. "We understand that capturing activities will be crucial for operating systems, especially as major tech companies adopt similar approaches. Our goal is to establish an open platform that connects users with various assistants and models," de Witte explained.
He emphasized the aim to create an AI app that is user-friendly for all age groups, even for those unfamiliar with the underlying technology. To achieve this, the app offers contextual prompt suggestions based on captured content.
Additionally, Medal is building an open platform that enables developers to create their own applications within the Highlight ecosystem. This is comparable to the Raycast launcher for Mac, which allows for the installation of developer-made extensions, with the key distinction that Highlight will be available on both Mac and Windows platforms.
According to OMERS Ventures’ Gladwyn, Highlight's independence and lack of allegiance to a single ecosystem offer it a distinct competitive edge.
Looking Ahead
While Medal.tv remains a flourishing product with ongoing feature enhancements, the company is allocating resources to focus on Highlight. Currently, Highlight is available for free, but de Witte envisions a monetization strategy centered around an app store model. The startup is also considering a premium subscription tier to unlock exclusive apps and features like local-first models.
To foster the app ecosystem, Medal is offering grants of up to $30,000 to developers, who will gain access to the Highlight team to collaborate on app development.
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