In 2014 my co-founder John Traver and I set out to transform the way video teams work. At the time, video was still predominantly transferred via FTP, and tape-based formats were still in full swing. A cloud native post-production process was something we could only dream about. “How do you upload huge video files,” “Who’s going to trust you with their content,” and “Is this secure?” were the most common questions people asked us.
Since those early days, Frame.io has scaled from just my co-founder and me to a thriving team of 110 brilliant engineers, designers, product thinkers, business leaders, marketers, sales people, and everything in between.
Today, I’m super excited to announce a $50M Series C financing round led by Insight Partners, one of the preeminent growth-stage investors in New York City, bringing our total funding to $82.2M. Wow. I sat down with Sarah Perez from TechCrunch to discuss the details of the round more thoroughly. We’re also thrilled to welcome Itai Tsiddon to our board of directors.
Five years ago, I was the owner of a post-production company. Just like you, I was living in the edit suite for 8+ hours a day. As the owner of a boutique studio, my fingers were on the keys on a daily basis. Whether it was in the grading suite, replacing a screen in Nuke, calibrating a monitor, syncing dailies, or doing a finish in Smoke, our founding team (myself included) were daily operators and creators. This is important. Frame.io was born out of the real filmmaking and post-production DNA that lets us stay authentically connected to the needs of the industry. We aren’t just creating things we think filmmakers need. We’re innovating to solve the massive workflow challenges that we lived every day.
John and I started building Frame.io because we were sick of being sold software that was overpriced and underwhelming. We set out to create a product that delivered the world’s best design, lightning-fast search, social media-quality commenting and communication, and hardcore professional video capabilities all in one. The past five years of progress has only been our journey to basecamp. We’ve assembled a collection of craftspeople from diverse backgrounds, and now it’s time to kick things into high gear. While I can’t divulge a full roadmap, here’s how we plan to deploy our cash in 2020 and beyond:
- Doubling our product, design, and engineering team from 40 to 80: This is the team that actually designs and builds the Frame.io product. Our total team will grow from 110 to 240 in 2020.
- Opening an LA office and showroom: Frame.io is headquartered in NYC, but Hollywood is the center of the media universe. Next year, we will open an incredible space to not only house our LA-based employees, but also to host community events on a regular basis.
- Delivering on Camera to Cloud: In September we announced the addition of Michael Cioni, who joined Frame.io as our Global SVP of Innovation to oversee our Camera to Cloud effort. With this round of financing, we are ready to start making some serious moves toward developing this hardware/software technology.
- Security: It’s paramount to everything we do. We know that our features are only as good as our ability to keep your content safe. In February of 2018 we announced our plans to build a world-class security program from the ground up. We’ve made incredible progress including TPN compliance, Soc 2 Type 2 compliance, a published and peer-reviewed security research paper, and a CSO security award. But it’s not enough. We’re doubling down on those efforts to make Frame.io the most trusted video platform on the market.
- Brand new products: They are cooking and dinner will be served in 2020.
There’s never been a more exciting time to be a filmmaker. Video was once tightly confined to cinema and entertainment. While entertainment continues to be one of the most engaging and emotional use cases for video, it’s now broken out of its early roots and has become the most important and pervasive communication method in the world. Every business across every industry is becoming a video storyteller, because everyone wants to receive information through video. Access to tools has never been greater. The market is flooded with high quality and inexpensive equipment, which allows anyone to become a video storyteller. And there’s no shortage of new distribution options. You can reach billions on YouTube for free or spin up your very own Apple TV channel and take on the likes of Disney +. This next decade will usher in entirely new paradigms and open up tremendous opportunities for anyone who’s ready and willing to take advantage of these new workflows.
On behalf of John and myself, thank you for supporting and believing in our vision. We take your vote of confidence with a tremendous sense of responsibility. We can’t wait to show you what we’re working on next.
