Seattle-based video startup Pictory has raised a $2.1 million seed round.
Fuse, a venture capital firm headquartered in Bellevue that counts Seahawks star Bobby Wagner as a venture partner, led the funding, which was announced Tuesday. Voyager Capital and multiple angel investors also participated. This is the Pictory's first external financing, according to the company.
"We are very excited to partner with Fuse in our hyper-growth journey," Vikram Chalana, CEO and co-founder of Pictory, said in a news release. "The investment and their network will help us a build and expand a global community of video content marketers. The investment will also help us significantly improve our AI algorithms in video production, enhancing the time-to-value for our community."
Pictory, founded in 2019, uses artificial intelligence to create short videos from longer videos and text. The company says this can help users create digestible videos for social media from something like a webinar or a blog post. The company said it has more than 5,000 clients around the globe.
Fuse, which invests in early-stage companies in the Pacific Northwest, has been busy investing in local companies over the past year. In September, Fuse participated in the Seattle-based agricultural startup Carbon Robotics' $27 million Series B round. In July, Fuse led a $10 million Series A investment in WellSaid Labs, a voice technology company headquartered in Seattle. WellSaid Labs spun out of the Allen Institute for AI.
According to Pictory, the funding will help with sales, marketing and product development. The company has an open role for a senior user experience designer on its website.
"With Pictory, the average user has enterprise-ready video editing and publishing tools at their fingertips," Kellan Carter, general partner at Fuse, said in a news release. “Pictory is led by a world-class team who have successfully built and scaled software companies before."
