Video is the beating heart of the most popular content online these days, and not just because it’s entertaining. That’s also because of how accessible it is: it’s become incredibly easy for anyone, tech-savvy or not, to create, post, or watch videos. A London-based startup called today water that’s an online-only, web-based platform for all these video creators to edit and publish their work, announces $35 million in funding, set to be doubled due to strong demand.
The funding comes from a single investor, Sequoia, and this is Veed’s first outside money since launching as a bootstrap company in 2018.
Sequoia chose a promising horse in the start race. Veed currently has 1 million users and $7 million in annual recurring revenue, a number that’s growing fast: ARR was $6 million just two months ago. Veed is sold as Freemium Product – “Tens of thousands” are paying for the service, CEO Sabba Keynejad told me – and it’s profitable.
Veed started out with simple cut/crop/merge editing tools, but today it covers a really wide range of other features that speak to the many ways video is used today: it includes the ability to add music or other media, and the sound to manipulate; create video effects; Subtitle; and a suite of editing tools optimized for specific platforms such as YouTube; along with corporate video capabilities such as screen and webcam recording and creation of teleprompter text.
Veed will use part of the funding to expand that list of features that will steer it into content distribution: It plans to add live streaming and hosting tools next.
Video has been an online juggernaut for some time, with its magnetic pull fueled by premium streaming services, user-generated content platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, advertising, and more. Cisco estimates that videos will account for 82% of all online traffic in 2021.
Video editing tools have accompanied this surge. There is dedicated applications for professional and casual Desktop and mobile users, online platforms either specially focused on video or part from larger suites of creative toolsand tools directly embedded in social media apps, or offshoots of itas well as tools available through others video services. some like image type and canvas have raised significant funds; Others like ClipChamp are being adopted by larger platforms (in this case Microsoft) and merge into much larger ones, existing products.
So why does the world need another video platform?
Investors also seemed to be asking themselves this question at first: Keynejad said that the fact that Veed has been bootstrapped so far is not because they wanted to build it that way. That was because he and co-founder Timur Mamedov – a computer scientist who dabbles in his spare time as a graffiti artist; his work is the background of the picture that illustrates this story – could not raise money. Her attempts to do so included applying to Y Combinator multiple times and getting rejected. (The essay Keynejad wrote about their YC experience is funny and charming, worth reading.) And they couldn’t get on the same page with seed capital and angels either.
However, Keynejad said that he came to the business of building a video editing startup not as a pragmatic entrepreneur looking for an interesting niche to make money, but as someone who works in the industry and finds that the tools available are lacking.
Keynejad studied Design and Interaction at Central St Martin’s in London and then embarked on a career using this education in design studios, where he was heavily involved with online video. As he recalls, everything he encountered while working in the market was “clunky and complex”. This wasn’t just about how to get comfortable using a particular package or whether it has (or doesn’t have) a feature you want to use, but also how the service exists in the modern world. For example, if you were collaborating with someone else, many of the packages required users to transfer huge files between themselves.
The non-intuitive nature of many existing video tools was perhaps particularly acute for Keynejad himself.
He tells me that he grew up with severe dyslexia and was prevented for three years from passing his English GCSE (one of several intensive exams that students take in year 11 next). But as he designed Veed for its toughest customer – himself – he was also building for a massive market with an increasing number of permutations of how online video looked online and what it was supposed to do.
“I just thought that the reach and amount of video content we were consuming would have surpassed the tools we had to create it,” he said.
So he set about creating the first version of Veed with the goal of creating something that anyone could use, regardless of the video creator’s experience. Given how online video has evolved into a truly democratized medium, this is a wise choice: you’re just as likely to encounter highly produced, professional videos as you are something from a regular Joe. Key to Veed built it entirely online: if you were collaborating with someone else, all you needed to share your work was a URL.
“It’s a super wide range of use cases,” Keynejad said, noting that people see weddings, birthday videos, professional coaching sessions, internal communications, influencers doing their thing, and anything else you could brighten up with a ring light. have edited.
The funding will also be used to hire more employees for Veed to continue growing the product. In keeping with the times, Veed will not require people to work from London, not least because their own leadership does not: Keynejad left The Smoke on a one-way ticket to Lisbon this week. He told me he plans to stay there for about a month and then lead the life of a digital nomad, working while hopping from city to city for at least five months – ideally hiring people as he moves on, added he added.
Sequoia is an interesting VC that could be the first investor in Veed.
After many years of supporting startups in Europe from afar, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital icon has settled in London in 2020 to seriously seek more European investment. Partner Luciana Lixandru, poached from Accel, was a key figure in this effort, with a reputation for making prescient bets on startups and founders that others have overlooked. Keynejad said talks with Sequoia began some time ago after it gained momentum as a company and it felt like the natural choice to be the first investor in the company.
“Just as we believed in YouTube early on, we believe in it at Sequoia water is the future of video,” Lixandru said via email. “Sabba, Timur and their team are building the next great platform in this ever expanding space. As artists themselves, they have a deep empathy for the creator community, and in turn, creators genuinely love their product. It is incredible what they have achieved so far and we are honored to be with them for this next part of the journey.”
