Veed, An Online Video Editing Tool, Picks Up $35 Million From Sequoia Capital
Veed, an online video editing tool, picks up $35 million from Sequoia Capital
In today's world, video is the lifeblood of the most popular web content, and it's not just for the sake of entertaining people. Because video has become so accessible, it has become exceedingly easy for anyone, whether or not they are technically inclined, to create, post and view video. To take advantage of the company's quick growth, Veed, a London-based startup that has established an internet only, web-based platform for all those video artists to edit and publish their work, today announced a $35 million fundraising round to capitalize on the company's rapid growth.
Veed has acquired funding from a single investor, Sequoia Capital, marking the company's first outside investment since it launched as a bootstrapped firm in 2018 and its first outside investment since then.
Sequoia Capital has invested in a potential startup. With one million subscribers and an annual recurring revenue of $7 million, Veed is on its way to becoming a profitable company. ARR reached $6 million just two months ago, and it is expected to reach $7 million soon. Veed is a freemium service — CEO Sabba Keynejad informed me that "tens of thousands" of people use the service — and it is profitable, according to the company's financial statements.
The company's video editing tools began with basic cutting/cropping/merging tools, but has since grown to include a wide range of other features that reflect the diverse ways in which video is used today: the ability to add music or other media and manipulate the sound; the ability to create video effects; subtitles; and a range of editing tools optimized for specific platforms like YouTube; and enterprise video features such as screen and webcam recording and the ability to create teleprompter text.
Using the funds, Veed wants to broaden its offering with new capabilities that will shift the firm's emphasis away from content creation and distribution. The company expects to introduce live streaming and hosting capabilities in the near future.
Video has long been a dominant force on the internet, manifesting its magnetic pull through premium streaming services, user-generated content platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, as well as through advertising. According to Cisco, video will account for 82 percent of all web traffic by 2021.
Video editing technologies have progressed in lockstep with the advancement of technology. There are dedicated desktop and smartphone programs for professionals and casual users, internet platforms dedicated to video or integrated into larger suites of creative tools, tools incorporated directly into social networking apps or offshoots, as well as tools available via other video services. There are also dedicated desktop and smartphone programs for professionals and casual users. A few of them, such as Picsart and Canva, have received major financial backing; others, such as ClipChamp, are being acquired by larger platforms (in this case, Microsoft) and integrated into much larger, more established offerings.
As a result, why does the world need of another video platform?
Veed had been bootstrapped up until this point, not because the firm wished to build the company in this manner, according to Keynejad, who noted that investors had raised the subject at the time of the initial public offering. In the end, he and his co-founder Timur Mamedov — who is an engineer by day and a graffiti artist by night; his work serves as the backdrop for the illustration accompanying this article — were unable to collect the necessary cash to continue the project. Their attempts included multiple applications to and rejections from the Y Combinator accelerator program. ) (Keynejad's essay about their Year in the City experience is humorous and sweet, and it is well worth reading.) Furthermore, they were unable to engage with seed funds and angel investors due to financial constraints.
Keynejad, on the other hand, claims that he entered the video editing startup business not as a practical entrepreneur looking for an attractive money-making potential in the market, but rather as an industry specialist who recognized a dearth of readily available tools.
The designer Keynejad studied design and interaction at Central St Martin's in London before going on to work in design firms, where he was obliged to engage with internet video to a significant extent. According to his memory, everything he encountered in the market while carrying out his duties was "clunky and impossible to navigate." That meant knowing how to use a particular package and determining whether it had (or lacked, depending on the situation) a feature you sought, but it was also about understanding the way a service operated in the current environment. If you were working on a project with another individual, for example, several of the products required users to share large files between them.
The fact that a huge number of existing video tools are not obvious suggests that Keynejad was particularly sensitive to this feature.
When asked about his dyslexia, he says that he was held back for three years while attempting to pass his English GCSE (one of a series of tough tests that students in year 11 aged 15/16 in England must pass in order to move onto the next level of their education). He was designing Veed for the most demanding customer he could think of at the time, himself, but he was also designing for a broad market, with an ever-growing number of variations in how online video looked and what it was intended to do.
"I simply felt that the diversity and quantity of video content we consume had outpaced the tools available to generate it," he added. "I was wrong."
Because of this, he began developing the original version of Veed with the purpose of producing something that could be utilized by everyone, regardless of their degree of skill as a video artist, as a result of his discovery. As web video has evolved into a truly democratic medium, it is a good decision to make. You are just as likely to come across beautifully produced, professional film as you are to come across anything from an ordinary Joe. The fact that Veed was entirely web-based was critical to its success: if you worked on a project with another person, all you needed to share your work was a unique URL.
Among the many applications for the ring light, Keynejad pointed out that users have used it to edit wedding videos, birthday films, professional coaching sessions, internal communications, influencer videos, and anything else that could benefit from being brightened with a ring light. "It's a very broad set of use cases," Keynejad added.
Additionally, the funds will be used to expand the Veed team in order to continue to develop the product further. Veed will not push workers to work outside of London in order to keep up with the trends, not least since the company's own leadership is not in step with the times. This week, Keynejad flew from The Smoke to Lisbon on a one-way ticket. He explained to me that he intends to stay for approximately a month and then travel around the world as a digital nomad for at least five months, working while bouncing from city to city, and ideally creating jobs along the way.
Sequoia Capital is an intriguing venture capital organization that has expressed interest in investing in Veed as a first investor.
A permanent presence in London was formed by the Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist in 2020 to seek European investments more aggressively after years of backing entrepreneurs in the region from a distance. Luciana Lixandru, who was poached from Accel, was a significant hire for that project since she had a reputation for making precognitive wagers on startups and founders that others had failed to recognize. Keynejad claimed that conversations with Sequoia began some time ago, as the company began to acquire traction as a business, and that the company thought that Sequoia was the best choice as the company's inaugural investor.
Similarly to how Sequoia was an early user of YouTube, Lixandru believes that Veed represents the future of video at the company. "Sabba, Timur, and their team are setting the groundwork for what they believe will be the next great platform in this quickly expanding industry. Due to their artistic sensibilities, they have a strong sense of empathy for the creator community, which results in the creative community being extremely enthusiastic about their work. The progress they've made so far is incredible, and it's an honor for us to be there for the voyage."
