Soona, a content creation startup with locations in Denver, Austin and Minneapolis, announced Friday it closed a $10.2 million Series A round following a year of rapid growth and change.
Soona, which makes professional photography and videography accessible for brands, was among the list of nonessential businesses forced to temporarily close last year, meaning in-person photo or video shoots were no longer an option. So, soona rebuilt its viewing platform to allow customers to view the content online as the shoot was taking place. Prior to this move, real-time content was only available at a soona studio.
“We knew that getting customers to change their behavior to a completely virtual shoot was going to be a process,” CEO and co-founder Liz Giorgi told Built In. “So, one of the ways in which the pandemic was really helpful to us, both as a business but also in terms of moving the industry forward in general, is that we decided to make the entirely bold decision to restructure that application and essentially rebuild it so that it could be used in a variety of types of production environments.”
“The way the business works today is that we use intelligent logic at booking to ... make an intelligent routing choice based on where we think it's best for that item to be shot,” she added.
Now, the company offers in-person or virtual shoots. For virtual shoots, brands send their products to a soona studio in Austin, Denver, Minneapolis or an at-home studio. Giorgi said about 25 percent of the company’s creative teams are working out of their spare bedrooms, offices or garages. Then, content can be viewed online as it’s created. Photos start at $39 each and videos start at $93 each. Content is available to purchase 24 hours after the shoot.
The recent funding round will, in part, be used to expand the company’s “camera-to-cloud” technology and roll out a subscription option this summer, Giorgi said.
The startup is also opening its first digital fulfillment studio. The 10,000-square-foot digital studio will be located in Minneapolis.
Soona is currently hiring for various positions. The company plans to soon hire 60 people in Minneapolis, including creatives working in the new digital fulfillment studio and engineers. Elsewhere, Giorgi plans to grow Austin’s headcount from six people to 12 or 15 by the end of the year. In Colorado, she plans to grow from 21 people to 35 or 40 by the end of the year.
The recent funding round was led by Union Square Ventures. Matchstick Ventures, 2048 Ventures, Starting Line Ventures and Range Ventures also helped fund this round.
“Soona’s technology solves for the missing piece of the e-commerce stack,” Rebecca Kaden, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, said in a statement. “There is a huge opportunity to meet the demand of e-commerce brands as this category continues to grow. Soona has already achieved exponential organic growth and high customer retention, and we’re thrilled to support this team.”
Co-founded in 2019 by Giorgi and Hayley Anderson, who serves as the company’s chief creative officer, soona has more than 4,000 customers. The company’s revenue grew 400 percent last year and is expected to rapidly grow again this year.
Soona also raised $3.5 million in February of 2020 and was listed on Built In Colorado’s 50 Startups to Watch in 2020.
