With a global shift to e-commerce spurred by the pandemic, digital brands and products have more eyeballs on them than ever before. That shift has been crucial to the growth of Denver-based content studio startup Soona.
The company, founded in 2018 by Liz Giorgi and Hayley Anderson, has seen a massive uptick in customer interest over the previous two years. The company has grown to serve more than 8,000 customers and has seen demand for its virtual photo and video shoot technology explode.
“The great news for us, and a lot of people in our space, is we have all woken up to the fact that e-commerce isn’t going anywhere,”
That interest, along with Soona’s 300% revenue growth in 2021 and 400% revenue growth in 2020, has led to a Series B that puts the company on the path to a $1 billion unicorn valuation.
Soona announced this week that it has raised a $35 million Series B funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Previous investors Union Square Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Starting Line Ventures, 2048 Ventures and Range Ventures also participated in the round.
For Giorgi, this round is the culmination of years of hard work for Soona and a perfect storm of e-commerce adoption.
“The expansion of e-commerce into every single product category has made Soona so much more obvious to the venture community,” she said.
Soona is a fast-casual content platform that helps brands make professional-quality photos and videos in a single day. The company’s customers include Lola Tampons, The Sill and Wild Earth, and it has three primary hubs in Denver, Minneapolis and Austin, Texas.
With this capital on board, Soona is looking to grow its product offerings to meet customer demand, expand its physical footprint and grow its team.
Giorgi said the company has identified some important product opportunities in areas like photography robotics, 3D rendering and data tools to deliver to its clients. And, on the physical side, Soona will be adding warehouse and logistics sites in Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami and Atlanta this year.
Soona is also set to grow its team from 120 employees to nearly 200 this year following the round. Giorgi said she was proud of the diverse team Soona has created and attributed a great deal of the company’s success to that.
“When you look at the leadership team at Soona, it is a lot of people that don’t fit the prototype of the startup ecosystem,” she said.
This raise comes at a time of incredible momentum for women-led startups in Colorado. On Jan. 19, Denver employee learning startup Spekit raised one of the largest venture rounds by a woman-led technology company in the state’s history by bringing on a $45 million Series B that would help it double its staff and expand its employee training product.
Giorgi said she and Spekit CEO Melanie Fellay were talking as both companies went through their Series B rounds and recently celebrated the joint success.
That personal connection is what Giorgi said separates Colorado from its competitors.
“I would put us up against any other city in the U.S. in terms of having a quantity of stories of quality companies being started by female founders and growing and building value rapidly,” she said. “It’s the women rallying around each other and supporting each other. This is a group of women who have made it a mission to make sure we have each other’s back and I don’t know if you see that everywhere.”
While Soona didn’t share its valuation following this round, Giorgi said the company is approaching the $1 billion unicorn valuation and is ready to cross that threshold with its next raise.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to deliver on that billion-dollar valuation in this next round,” she said.
