Frame.io, developers of the video review and collaboration platform for content creators, has raised $20 million in Series B growth funding led by FirstMark Capital. The latest round of funding was also supported by return backers Accel Partners, SignalFire and Shasta Ventures. This latest infusion of capital brings Frame.io’s total funding to date to $32 million, which the startup will use to develop in key areas including the core video review and collaboration product, cloud and content security, and the Frame.io developer ecosystem. Founded in 2014, Frame.io is also backed by Hollywood heavyweights Jared Leto and Kevin Spacey.
Emery Wells, co-founder and CEO of Frame.io., described the new round of funding as “an exciting milestone for our team, and more importantly our community, and will help us in elevating our mission from reimagining video collaboration to reimagining postproduction itself.”
Frame.io makes the process of sharing and collaborating on video projects incredibly simple, through an intuitive user interface where users can upload and organize projects, then share internally or with clients to review and add feedback. Used by leading media and entertainment companies including TechCrunch, BBC, Vice, The Onion and Facebook, Frame.io has helped countless organizations in the transition to video, as more and more companies implement video into their branding strategies.
With the Series B funding, Frame.io will be making a sizable investment in iterating the core product, with a significant focus on cloud and content security. Trusted by some of the world’s largest media corporations, security is top of mind for leaders in the industry; as such, security has become a core pillar of the Frame.io product offering, and will continue to expand with features such as watermarking and a host of new security/compliance certifications including MPAA. This investment in security will also extend to the inclusion of artificial intelligence and machine learning into the core and enterprise product roadmap.
“Artificial Intelligence is going to play a huge role in Frame.io’s future,” stated Matthew Ruttley, head of data at Frame.io, who spearheads the company’s data science initiatives. “Enterprise customers will benefit from a whole host of powerful, proprietary Machine Learning systems. These apply to everything from streamlining video review workflows, to robust, all-important security features.”
2017 has been a year of milestones for the New York City-based Frame.io, with the release of Frame.io 2 followed by the official launch of Frame.io Enterprise–the company’s enterprise-grade product designed to help the largest media clients, including Turner Broadcasting Systems and Buzzfeed, collaborate at scale. With over 370,000 users (and counting) in over 170 countries, Frame.io will be using this investment to double down on strategic product innovation, offering content creators a platform that connects the many different creative tools, publishing tools, stock services, asset management and storage systems, and many other specialty products involved in the business of creating video.
The new funding will also help Frame.io expand its rapidly growing team, which has doubled in the past year, across the board.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More