Biteable, a Hobart-based startup that has developed an online tool allowing users to create professional promo videos in minutes, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Australian investors including Tank Stream Ventures and BridgeLane Capital.
The startup, whose last round of funding came through a $130,000 angel investment last December, has seen over 90,000 customers use its platform to create over 100,000 videos, with these customers ranging from small businesses to schools through to Fortune 500 companies. The fresh funding will go towards expanding the Biteable team, further developing the product, and broadening the video content available to users.
Rui Rodrigues, managing partner at Tank Stream Ventures, said, “Biteable has democratised access to video creation for consumers. The team has built an awesome product, proving that you can build a global business from anywhere in Australia.”
James MacGregor, co-founder and CEO of Biteable, said that while the team knew there was strong demand for a simpler way to make promo videos, they have been blown away by the response. Founded in 2013, Biteable has gone from strength to strength in the last year thanks to the rise of technology that allows users to watch videos on the go, such as on smartphones through Facebook.
“Businesses large and small want to take advantage of the power of video to showcase their own products and services, but without incurring the high costs traditionally charged by digital agencies. Biteable is riding that wave,” MacGregor said.
Over 24,000 of Biteable’s 90,000 users have come in the last month alone, with many now asking the startup to change its pricing structure and introduce a subscription model. As it currently stands, a user can create a video from a Biteable template and either publish it to their site, social media, or any other platform as is, with a Biteable watermark visible; removing the watermark costs US$99.
“People have been actively asking for subscription plans, because originally we thought people would want to make a single video for their homepage, but now we’ve realised there’s lots and lots of use cases. There’s schools using it for their curriculum, companies that are putting all their announcements out as videos, classifieds sites turning classifieds into videos. There’s a plethora of use cases and a lot of those want to make a lot of videos. The current pricing doesn’t work for that at all,” MacGregor said.
The startup will continue to offer the product for free, as it has found that it’s the free users who are driving all the traffic through the watermark.
With the majority of Biteable’s users overseas, the startup has one eye on establishing a presence in the US at some point in the future, but for now, the team is happy in Hobart and is set to add two local developers to its ranks next week.
“There’s quite a lot of skilled developers around and not a lot of startups or companies for them to go to, so it’s a real advantage to be here from a development side,” MacGregor said. “The rest of the world doesn’t really care where we are. I don’t think they even know where Tasmania is, to be honest.”
Image: Simon Westlake (Creative Director), James MacGregor (CEO), Tommy Fotak (CTO). Source: Supplied.
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