With nearly 1.5 BILLION sites active on the world wide web, the need for professional images and video to stand out online continues to accelerate. The problem is that traditional agencies can be pricey and time-intensive and stock images or DIY iPhone photos aren’t going to be high-quality enough to truly stand out.
Denver Colo.-based startup soona is offering a middle ground for businesses in need of photo or video content, calling on a decades-old business model to do so.
“We’re truly like a Kinko’s experience, doing the same thing for digital photo and video,” co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Giorgi told Colorado Inno.
soona’s co-founders Hayley Anderson and Elizabeth Giorgi. Photo Credit: soona
Much like Kinko’s did for printing, soona offers high quality digital content delivered to the customer within 24 hours. With a professional crew, high-grade equipment and proprietary software, soona offers digital content with a quick turnaround.
With newly launched studios in Denver and Minneapolis, soona’s services costs $393 per hour for a one-time shoot (nine edited photos or one edited video), or $453 for a monthly membership that guarantees you one hour every month and additional discounts.
The company’s primary customers are e-commerce companies looking for product shots or launch videos, but Giorgi said soona also services many solopreneurs, like financial advisors and real estate agents looking to create testimonials or social media content.
“With soona there is a growing market need for addressing the gap between stock content or your iPhone and the high-end digital ad agency experience we’ve had for a long time,” Giorgi said.
While soona is a retail startup on its face, the company has also developed a software component that allows them to more quickly produce and share content.
“Everything that happens in our store is held together by our software,” Giorgi said.
The company recently announced it has raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by 2048 Ventures, with participation from Matchstick Ventures and Techstars Ventures. soona graduated from Boulder’s Techstars accelerator this spring.
Giorgi said the funding will allow soona to improve its in-store operations and technology stack as they prepare to launch three to five new studios in 2020.
soona’s Denver studio at 1235 S Broadway st. Photo Credit: soona.
The company chose Denver and Minneapolis strategically for its first two studios, for the former’s success in building B2B startups and the latter’s strong retail base. Giorgi laughed at the chaos that’s come with opening two stores in the last month, but said it was always in the 10-employee company’s plan.
“It has been a new experience and a dynamic learning experience, and it’s always been our vision to nail our first two stores,” she said. “The customers love it and we needed to prove that would be the case.”
The funding will also enable soona to launch its online-only component, soona anytime, that will allow customers in any location to send their product and receive the content they need in a week.
As part of the funding, soona has implemented a ‘Candor Clause’ with its investors. This clause is an open-source legal disclosure that aims to foster conversations between founders and investors about gender equality.
In addition to sparking these conversations, the clause makes it clear that there will be consequences should the terms be violated.
Giorgi said she searched around for something like this prior to her raise and was dismayed not to find any outline or guide to follow. So, she and her co-founder Hayley Anderson developed the clause as an inclusion in their deal, but also as a resource for other female founders.
“This isn’t just about women founders raising more money,” she said. “This is about creating a culture within startups and our entrepreneurial community that we’re going to treat each other better and rise above.”
