2. Conga is 1.
2.
A social discovery platform
Hard science in action
If you
3. A platform for the future
4. For multiple markets and uses
have
5. A world-class team of innovators
these
questions:
2 3
3. 100 people in a room. Whom should I meet?
100 new company hires. Whom should I get to know?
100 news feed articles. Which articles should I read?
50 potential partners. Which partner should I choose?
10 remaining seats. Which seat should I reserve?
20 available hotels. Which hotel should I book?
50 qualified candidates. Whom should I interview?
Conga has the answers.
4 5
4. Before Conga After Conga
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? ? ?
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Conga's personalized social relevance
platform acts as a trusted facilitator
between people who have never met,
and offers a means to find new, relevant
people, products, services, or content.
6 7
5. Conga “predicts the click” between Conga's patent-pending machine learning algorithms
identify patterns in an individual’s social connections
people or groups of people.
using pre-existing social data.
Once identified, Conga uses these patterns to accurately
predict new, highly relevant social connections.
Conga models existing social con- Conga's science goes far beyond simple techniques like
comparing shared connections or shared interests.
nections to predict future ones.
Conga learns what makes an individual’s social
connections meaningful to him or her, and uses that
personalized information to predict future connections.
Conga is a cloud-based platform. As a cloud-based platform, Conga makes it possible to
add social relevance capabilities to nearly any application,
across numerous use cases in multiple problem domains.
8 9
6. Conga is built on
hard science.
Our advanced mathematical models operate on millions
of data to understand the social behavior of people,
producing accurate and scalable predictions of social fit.
HARD People you
should know
vs People you
already know
Science Making predictions of people
you should know is a notori-
ously hard problem, and poorly
By contrast, social networks try
to replicate existing, offline rela-
tionships. To improve collection
solved by existing solutions. of this data, basic clustering and
Conga has created a novel ap- similarity-matching algorithms
proach to modeling individuals can be used to predict existing
and their relationships using connections—mundane tech-
existing social data, making this niques that do nothing to pre-
difficult problem tractable. dict new connections.
The growth of social networks has been from collecting
our pasts—the people we already know. But new growth,
insights, and experiences will come from our futures,
from the people we should know.
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7. We affectionately named our
algorithm the "ELF".
As a brief example, if we had height
and weight data for randomly se-
T he core of Conga’s science is
the ELF algorithm, a multi-stage
Bayesian mixture model.
ELF analyzes social and lected people and nothing else, then
profile data to produce a set we could define their sex, age, etc. as
We named our algorithm based on its three
primary qualities:
of factors that describe the hidden factors.
• Entropic, referring to our search for higher-
order statistical structure; social relationship behavior
• Logistic, referring to the need to model the
probabilistic occurrence of binary data such
of people. These hidden “motives” for being a
as social connections or statements; and
• Factorial, referring to our search for
statistically independent motives.
particular height and weight are not
In the case of social relationships, there are Thus, Conga can identify the factors that directly present in the data, but we
numerous motives, or factors, hidden in the drive existing social connections, predict how
social and profile data available from social
networks. With the right algorithm, we can infer
new, desirable connections might form, and
recommend specific factors to anchor new can infer them from the co-occur-
these factors from the co-occurrence patterns of relationships (e.g., sales leads).
statements in dyadic and polyadic data. rence patterns of height and weight.
The mathematics behind the ELF algorithm
ELF analyzes this social and profile data to provide unique insights into the “causes” of
produce a set of factors that describe the social relationships as mined from social data; however,
relationship behavior of people. Importantly, ELF the ingestion and processing of enormous
goes beyond simple correlational structure to quantities of social data could easily outpace The ELF algorithm does the equiva-
look at the higher order statistical relationships infrastructure without further advances.
between statements. It models not simply
individuals or keywords, but vast dictionaries Therefore, we have structured ELF and it's data lent for thousands of hidden factors
of latent relationship factors learned from the representation as a tree hierarchy of arbitrary
patterns of dyadic and polyadic relationships branching and depth. Queries and computation that predict social relationship pat-
found in our database. within the system can be performed efficiently
For any given pair or group of people, ELF can
by operating independently on any sub-branch
of the tree. The tree structure can be updated terns.
infer a small number of latent factors representing continuously offline, and high-value branches
the hidden causes which explain their relationship can be quickly identified and processed for any
or predict how a new relationship might form. realtime prediction query.
12 13
8. A Conga is
social relevance
platform as a service.
for the The Conga platform runs in a public
future or private cloud environment as
a service delivering social
relevance results to your
application.
14 15
9. How it works
Social relevance comprises both a personalized The platform uses our proprietary machine-
measurement of social fit—the Conga Score—and learning algorithm, dubbed ELF (Entropic-
insights into predictive relationship factors. Logistic-Factorial), that is specifically designed
to work with our large-scale semantic storage
Your application retrieves social relevance results infrastructure.
from Conga via its RESTful Web API, making inte-
gration with a wide variety of languages, libraries, A big data infrastructure.
applications, and platforms straightforward and
Populates External easy. As a data-centric company, we use the same
Social Data Conga ingests the data it needs to generate
petabyte-scale technologies and techniques that
industry leading companies like Facebook, Twitter,
Your User personalized social relevance results through Yahoo, Netflix, and Google use to store, process,
Au either authorized access to external data sources and analyze enormous volumes of data.
tho (like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and
riz Meetup.com), or through direct push of data from
es private sources through its API.
Conga ingests passive data from various external
sources, where it is normalized, canonicalized,
Ingests & and then stored in a semantic form that is readily
Uses analyzes Results are delivered on-demand, in real time, via useful for both simple queries as well as complex
calls to the API. Available APIs fall into the follow- analysis.
ing categories:
For each user profile that Conga ingests, we
PI • Data ingestion discover over 300 semantic facts derived from
b A • Search & lookup
Populates analysis of structured, semi-structured, and
We • Social relevance scoring & insights unstructured profile and social data. These facts
Your Conga • Profile curation are then used to both generate results in realtime,
• User messaging
Application Platform • User groups
as well as feed our machine-learning algorithms
and analysis batch jobs in an offline mode.
Retrieves • User management
social fit & • Platform management Conga’s platform and algorithms are designed to
insights store and process near-limitless amounts of data,
in both transactional and batch modes. Adding
additional data does not change the fundamental
The heart of the Conga platform is performance characteristics of the platform,
our personalized social relevance and no fundamental architectural changes are
engine. necessary to support hundreds of terabytes of
data.
The Conga platform ingests and processes
millions of semantic facts for each user to learn
on the order of 100,000 factors that collectively
describe their social relationships. The platform
then uses these factors to accurately and quickly
predict social relevance with new, unknown
people and groups.
16 17
10. About our technology
The Conga platform is designed to scale horizontally and
Web API to ingest, store & process near-limitless amounts of data.
Born a platform. A platform that scales.
Social Relevance
Conceived and built as a Web platform. Conga The Conga platform was designed from the
Data Ingestion
Engine
Geotemporal
Tuple Space
is 100% Java-based and makes extensive use of ground up to support Web-scale operation using
Correlation
Queuing
Amazon Web Services and petabyte-scale data our experience building and deploying world-
Search
technologies and techniques, including Apache class Web and cloud applications at NetDynam-
Cassandra and Hadoop. ics (the company that invented the application
server), Netscape, iPlanet, and Sun Microsystems.
The Conga platform is accessible to clients via
Social Fit
Insights
industry standard RESTful (HTTP) endpoints for Conga’s key subsystems are cluster-aware and
ELF
easy integration with a wide variety of languages, use battle-tested techniques and technologies for
libraries, applications, and architectures. scale-out, including:
In addition, these endpoints can easily be called • Linearly scalable NoSQL data storage
using Conga's automatically generated JavaScript • Robust load balancing across multiple tiers
stubs, and endpoint metadata is available in self- • Leveraging HTTP design principles for
describing WADL (Web Application Description efficient caching & data expiration
Transactional Services Batch Services Language) for easy tooling. • Cluster-aware batch processing
• Persistent queuing with cluster-aware
Some additional technologies we're using include fan-out
Amazon Web Services, Java EE, JPA, JAX-RS, Jersey, • Cluster-aware caching layers
Data Persistence Hibernate, Hibernate Spatial, Quartz, Apache, • Fully stateless application request processing
Glassfish, jQuery, MySQL, YUI, and EhCache.
18 19
11. Uses &
Conga delivers personalized social
relevance into your products, without the
Markets
effort, complication, and distraction of
doing it yourself.
20 21
12. Using Conga in your products
The Conga platform has four primary capabilities that Conga provides relevant, new Conga helps add meaningful
avenues for discovery. social channels.
make it useful to your product and business:
Conga helps uncover people in your customer Taking products in domains that aren’t traditional-
base that are similar to a customer’s social connec- ly social, like e-commerce, and turning them social
tions. is an opportunity to differentiate and delight.
These people then act as proxies to help your By providing social relvance, Conga helps trans-
1
product make interesting and relevant recom- form your product into a meaningful, relevant
One-to-one (dyadic) social relevance scoring and insights mendations—as relevant and useful as if coming social experience, even when your customers
from an actual connection. don't already know each other.
Given an individual, Conga returns a score (dubbed the Conga Score) representing how
likely another person is to be a good fit within the individual's social connections. In addi-
tion to the score, Conga also returns the dominant predictive factors driving the score, and
the facts that the two have in common.
Conga adds social relvance to your Conga differentiates your app
application. from the pack.
2 One-to-many (polyadic) social relevance scoring and insights Adding a layer of personalized social relevance
to your content, products, and services can help
Personalization is the secret sauce you can use to
make your product stand out from similar offer-
Given an individual, Conga returns a score representing how well that individual fits within elevate what may otherwise be a mundane cus- ings, and it gives you a new means for attracting
a group of people. The higher this score, the more likely the individual is to be a good fit tomer experience to something new and fresh. loyal, delighted customers.
within the group. In addition to the score, Conga also returns the dominant predictive fac-
tors driving the score, and the facts that the polyad have in common. Conga's social relevance can directly power peo- Conga helps personalize your product by provid-
ple discovery in your product, as well as provide a ing social context tailored to your customer.
proxy for content and product discovery.
3 Ranking and sorting of groups of people
The Conga platform can rank and sort groups of people according to social relevance to a Conga unlocks innovative, premi- Conga is a turn-key, cloud-based
given individual. Groups can be hyper-segmented across tens of millions of unique facts,
including geotemporal location, as well as ad-hoc, curated collections. um opportunities for your users. solution.
Where available, airline customers have shown an Don't spend your valuable time building a com-
openness to pay for the ability to choose a seat plex feature that isn't your core value proposition.
based on "interpersonal click" with fellow travel-
4 People recommendation ers, a capability called "social seating". Get your app off the ground faster and ensure suc-
cess by integrating Conga’s technology into your
When combined, the capabilities above can be used to find and surface the people—and Conga can help power similar opportunities product rather than trying to build it yourself.
by proxy, content and products—that should be recommended to an individual. across the hospitality, service, and travel verticals.
22 23
13. Market: Conferences & Events
Increase the value of events by automating discovery of
social connections between attendees.
Attendee satisfaction and repeat attendance depend on attendees get-
ting the most out of your event.
With Conga, your attendees will get more
Organizers
value out of your event by accessing
Add a new layer of social relevance to your conferences and events by automati-
cally tailoring recommendations for each attendee and providing new, relevant
avenues for interaction between event participants.
Attendees Quickly identify relevant social connections between attendees, speakers, ex- personalized content and networking
hibitors, or sponsor, and tap into new opportunities for networking.
opportunities that improve attendee
Opportunities collaboration and customer satisfaction.
» Make your event stand out through more satisfying, personalized attendee experiences.
» Open new, meaningful channels for social interaction.
» Tailor content & recommendations for each attendee
» Discover who among attendees are best matched.
» Increase attendee-to-attendee collaboration
» Improve the attendee experience
» Make your events more valuable
24 25
14. Market: Recruiting
Find out how a candidate will fit with your team—before
the first interview.
Team dynamics are a key driver of any successful organization, but when
building a team it can be hard to quantify the softer side of candidates, to
obtain a complete picture of how they fit with existing team members.
Conga gives you valuable insight into a
Recruiters
candidate's social fit with your team and
Conga reveals underlying factors to measure how a candidate fits with individ-
ual team members as well with the larger team, giving valuable insight before
you make the hiring decision.
helps you identify the right candidates
Opportunities faster, saving you precious time during the
» Improve team efficiency and morale by putting together the most compatible people
hiring process.
» Measure how candidates will fit with your team
» Get valuable social insight before you hire
» Filter and rank candidates by team fit
» Find similar candidates
26 27
15. Market: Travel & Hospitality
Seize a new opportunity to modernize and personalize
travel & hospitality experiences.
Help travelers choose flights, seats, and hotels based on social relevance
with other travelers to increase customer engagement, brand affinity, and
occupancy.
With Conga, your customers will be able
Airlines
to choose their airline and hotel based on
Personalize seating recommendations for each passenger and suggest the ideal
seatmate based on a prediction of social fit between passengers.
Hotels Get the guests you want. Let them know that “guests like them” stay with you. social fit with other travelers, increasing
Give guests a chance to discover each other.
customer engagement and maximizing
Opportunities your occupancy.
» Make flight and room selection about people, not just price
» Personalize seating recommendations
» Engage guests with your brand—your venue
» Delight customers & drive loyalty
» Charge a premium
28 29
16. Market: Social Business
Help employees connect more efficiently and get work
done faster.
Even in the smallest organizations, it can be difficult for employees to
identify relevant connections with other employees, creating organiza-
tional silos that hinder efficiency. Conga helps companies break down
Employers Recommend relevant people and groups to follow and join, and tailor content organizational silos by automating the
& recommendations for individual employees. Personalize content for each em-
ployee so they can quickly discover peers outside of their normal work groups
and access expertise they need to get work done faster. discovery of relevant social connections
between employees, enabling faster access
Opportunities to information & expertise, and increasing
» Give your employees the social insights to connect effectively employee satisfaction.
» Create enriching mentor-mentee programs
» New employee introduction & indoctrination programs
» Insights on the professionals they need to know
30 31
17. More information...
For detailed information on how Conga
can help your business, address specific
The
team
product requirements, or be applied
to a particular market, please refer to
additional information included with
this presentation, or contact us directly.
32 33
18. Crick Waters Todd Fast Ryan Kennedy Vivienne Ming
CEO CTO Product Chief Scientist
Born in Washington D.C. Lived in MD, VA, NC, PA, Raised and schooled in Texas. Landed in Silicon A "valley-man," born and bred in Silicon Valley. San Likes to predict. Can read your writing and tell you
WI, and MA before settling in California. Valley by way of Austin and Denver and intends to Franciscan, ice hockey player, reformed commuter. with 97% confidence what you’ll be doing a year
stay. from now. Scary smart yet extraordinarily gracious
Built ham radio receivers and programmed bio- Product Manager at Zembly.com (Sun Microsys- to the rest of us.
rhythm charts in machine language as a kid. Wrote games in 6502 assembly in 8th grade. Later, tems), a cloud-based IDE & hosting platform that
wrote the music for a famous Hollywood director's enabled browser-based development of apps for Entrepreneur. Founded two companies, sold one,
Surprising range of industry experiences includ- first film. Facebook, iPhone, and social platforms. and operates another in her spare time.
ing nuclear reactor control systems, paper making,
water treatment technology, voice over IP service, Drummer, composer, designer, photographer, Product management, marketing, & engineering at Uses expressions like “Efficient/Sparse Coding,”
filtration fabric, DSL, coated and printed paper and writer, public speaker, philosopher. Had a fling with Sun Microsystems and Borland Software. “LDA and topic modeling,” and “Multi-modal data
film, and Wi-Fi service. rocket science and steam, but returned to software mining” with the same ease the rest of us use
and lived happily ever after. Has worked in developer tools, cloud platforms, “grande non-fat latte.”
Entrepreneur (founder to $100M+ exit), senior ex- location-based services, & social discovery apps. BS Cognitive Science & Neuroscience, UCSD
ecutive, board member, advisor, investor, salesman, Architect and coder with a penchant for product
BS Operations & Management Information MS Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, CMU
product manager, engineering manager, business design and user experience. Has written a few app
development executive. Investor, board member, servers, too. Systems, Santa Clara Leavey School of Business PhD Psychology & Theoretical Neuroscience,
advisor, mentor, conference presenter, panelist, CMU
MS Software Engineering, SJSU
moderator. Chief Architect for Sun’s Platform-as-a-Service and
Java Enterprise Tools groups & founded Zembly. Visiting Scholar, UC Berkeley as Research scien-
Ask him about baseball. tist at the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neu-
Three patents issued or pending. com, a cloud-based IDE and social development
platform. roscience
BS Electrical Engineering, Duke University
MS Nuclear Engineering, Bettis Reactor Eng. Four patents issued or pending. Foodie.
School
MBA Fuqua School of Business, Duke University BS Mechanical Engineering at UT Austin
Family man. Competitive masters swimmer. Is the human Shazam for Seinfeld.
34 35
19. Corporate structure
• Conga, Inc. was incorporated February 2010 as a
Delaware C-corp.
• 100% of shares authorized or outstanding are
employee-owned.
About • Conga is privately funded.
conga, INC. Contact
Conga, Inc.
549 Laswell Ave
San Jose, CA 95128
info@conga.com
36 37