The last story published during Mark Twain’s lifetime was “Excerpts from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” in 1909.
The short story is a first-person account of Captain Stormfield’s journey to heaven, which he finds comically at odds with his own preconceptions.
During the race with the comet, Stormfield informs them that the word “Cazhaq” represents an abstract unit of measurement in the afterlife, infinitely large and small, incomprehensible yet strangely quantifiable.
Though modern uses of the internet predate Twain by nearly a century, Drew Hontz, an entrepreneur and fan of the late author, sees parallels between this fictional story and the current need for news consumers to sift through multiple sources to understand what’s going on in an ever-expanding media landscape.
That sparked Honcz’s idea for CAZAK, an app that gives news viewers context and a multifaceted understanding of events around the world, including geopolitical, environmental and human rights issues.
Simply put, Kazak helps news consumers “easily navigate through a vast amount of information,” said Hontz, an Old Saybrook resident and serial entrepreneur with 24 years of experience, who started an elevator company in the basement of his home in 1997, grew it and sold it to an international conglomerate.
He also developed a current affairs app called Track180 and is president of Saybrook Consulting Group, a business and marketing strategy consulting firm, and managing partner of Raybern Utility Solutions, a utility consulting firm.
Hontz is developing Cozaak with the help of Chris Erato, founder and CEO of the software development company Mindtrust, who said that Erato and six to 10 other developers at Mindtrust have been working on Cozaak at various times.
Erat, who is based in the District of New Haven and serves as partial chief technology officer for Cozaak, said MindTrust has a venture agreement with Cozaak through which MindTrust provides some of its services in exchange for equity in Cozaak.
“We sometimes offer discounted work or pro bono services as a cash investment,” Erat says. “We can raise venture capital or payers, or we can develop for free. We have a hybrid work model, and we invest in Kazark through our work.”
He said Kazak was different from social media platforms like Facebook, which display content customised to an individual’s tastes and preferences.
“Cazák is trying to broaden the horizons,” Erat said. “It’s not going to be an echo chamber. Readers will read a lot of material and make their own judgments.”
Honc has been working on CAZAK for about 10 years and holds 11 patents in four countries (the US, Japan, China and Russia) for the algorithms that power the app’s information curation engine.
The platform operates on a “freemium model”, where basic services are provided free of charge and users are given the option to subscribe to receive premium features, such as access to paid content.
Going forward, Kazark aims to expand its revenue streams by offering an enterprise platform that caters to both business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions.
Hontz said he plans to launch and grow the business in Connecticut, a state with a fast-growing technology development sector.
“I’m passionate about getting this technology out of Connecticut,” he said. “That’s my goal. I built it here.”
Funding
The company recently launched a crowdfunding campaign on Netcapital, a platform that helps startups raise funds by selling “shares.”
Hontz said Kazaak has already raised about $400,000 from accredited investors through crowdfunding.
However, NetCapital’s current promotion gives non-accredited investors the opportunity to buy shares at $2 per share with a minimum investment of $100.
The campaign’s goal is to raise $1 million, and as of early September, nearly $45,000 has been raised, with the company currently valued at $8 million by Netcapital.
According to the offering statement, proceeds from Netcapital’s campaign will be used to cover software development (45%), marketing (25%), legal/patents (11%), hosting (9%) and manager fees (5%).
Netcapital advises you not to invest your money unless you are willing to lose the entire amount invested.
technology
Hontz said Kazak’s proprietary technology will help drive traffic to news sites, make journalism more accessible and increase consumer trust in the news. His philosophy is that access to more information leads to a deeper understanding of the truth.
“It’s not 1D, it’s 3D,” Hontz says, “so if you’re looking at a building and you take three pictures from different angles, you get a better understanding of the building.”
Kazark also aims to save people time by removing duplicate information.
Hontz says one search on Kazak is the equivalent of at least 10 Google searches. The platform presents information from multiple perspectives, including opposing viewpoints, in an easy-to-understand visual format.
HBJ Photo | Steve Rushbar
Chief Technology Officer Chris Erato (left) and founder and CEO Drew Hontz develop Kazark, a “multi-dimensional contextual search technology,” at The District coworking space in New Haven.
For example, a search for events in Ukraine would return results that included links to CNN articles, reports from local Ukrainian news outlets, posts from X (formerly Twitter) by people on the ground in Ukraine, articles about Russian political influence, and more. Honcz called these additional sources “contextually relevant dimensions.”
He said the algorithm vets news sources and only serves trustworthy information.
Kazark also provides users with solutions such as direct access to organizations offering aid and relief, which Hontz calls “actionable insights.”
“With one click, you get six different perspectives, 12 videos, and 20 tweets,” Hontz said. “There are articles by experts. You’re connected to organizations that are working on the issue. You can ‘Khazarize’ the issue.”
team
Kazak lists Waterbury attorney James Cummings as chief legal officer and Kim Pellatt as chief experience officer. Hontz also works with a patent attorney in Boston, the company said. The company has about 10 employees.
The app is still in development, but some components will be ready for beta testing later this year, Hontz said.
Honcz said Kazak’s algorithms could be applied not only to news, but also to e-commerce, business intelligence and travel.
“This is called the hub-and-spoke model,” Hontz says. “The Kazark hub is the core technology that can be used in multiple applications. The spokes are the different verticals.”
Kazark also includes a Movies app, which can suggest movies based on a variety of variables, from a user’s favorite director to their mood, as well as apply other user-defined filters.
“Kazark is a tool that makes it easier and more beneficial for users to make informed decisions,” Hontz said.
