soona, the world’s first virtual content creation platform for e-commerce, announced it has raised $35M in Series B funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. Previous investors Union Square Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Starting Line Ventures, 2048 Ventures, and Range Ventures also participated in the round. soona, which transforms the way brands create content for e-commerce and marketing through its virtual photo and video shoot technology, will use the funds to fuel rapid growth. The company has over 8,000 brand customers and grew more than 300% in 2021 and 400% in 2020.
Online shopping grew 17% in 2021 and is expected to continue to accelerate. soona’s platform helps businesses meet the growing demand for quality e-commerce visuals by upending the traditional content creation model. soona delivers high-quality creative, a quick 24-hour turnaround time, and transparent pricing— all within one collaborative and intuitive online platform.
“There is not a single transaction that happens on the internet that does not involve a visual asset,” said Liz Giorgi, co-founder and CEO of soona. “Content is the difference between making a sale and not, which is why soona is so beloved by our clients. soona levels the playing field so every merchant can achieve their sales potential.”
The platform approach of providing everything a brand needs to plan a photoshoot, experience the photoshoot and get their content entirely online has stood out. One such example is soona’s pro services marketplace, which connects brands with models and stylists, and saw a 500% increase in activity in 2021.
“soona has defined a brand new category in e-commerce,” said Scott Friend, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures. “Essentially all brands now sell online, and to do so they rely on an integrated set of technologies to grow their businesses. One of the key capabilities that literally every online seller needs is the production of high quality visual images. soona is the first to solve for the visual layer of the e-commerce stack with an automated, cloud-based solution that produces super high-quality results for brands at a fraction of the time and cost of legacy solutions. Liz, Hayley and their team have built a tremendous foundation of clients, technology and momentum. BCV is really excited to add soona to our growing roster of commerce-tech leaders like Attentive Mobile, ShipBob, Recharge, Bloomreach and Flow.”
“This financing will allow soona to continue to be the global innovator in online content creation,” said Hayley Anderson, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of soona. “By further investing in our proprietary technology, we are expanding the possibilities for how creativity and content can come together online.”
How soona works:
Clients book a shoot with soona’s self-service software and choose from curated and recommended shoots or choose the option to build their own shoot. Brands can select everything from the background color to props to models, stylist or pets from its pro services network.
Clients ship their products and join their shoot online in real-time via a virtual photoshoot.
The a la carte menu makes content affordable. Photos for $39 and video clips for $93 also means brands only purchase the content they love, and get it back within 24 hours.
Brands can easily organize content within the platform, revisit previous shoots, and shop their past shoots for more content at any time.
With soona’s 5-star rated Shopify app, brands can then swap content into their store and product listing pages in just one click.
Brands like SNOW cosmetics have made soona an essential part of their e-commerce process. “We’ve seen our conversion rate go up over time, the more relevant our content is,” said Josh Snow, founder and CEO of Snow cosmetics. “Being able to have a partner like soona to generate hyper-relevant content sometimes within a 24-48 hour notice, allows us to outcompete our competitors.”
With over 8,000 clients including Lola Tampons, The Sill, and Wild Earth, and three hubs in Austin, Denver, and Minneapolis, soona helps companies sell products in a variety of product categories, including beauty and cosmetics, health and wellness, fashion and footwear, home goods, and pet care.. For more information on how soona can help your brand, visit: soona.co.
About soona
soona is a content creation platform that helps brands make professional-quality photos and videos. The company was founded in 2019 by Liz Giorgi and Hayley Anderson after the successful acquisition of their first business, Mighteor. Liz and Hayley are a dynamic founding creative team with a shared vision of using tech to enhance the work of creatives and improve access to high-quality custom content.
About Bain Capital Ventures
Bain Capital Ventures partners with disruptive founders to accelerate their ideas to market. BCV invests from seed to growth in startups driving transformation across industries, from SaaS, infrastructure software and security to fintech and healthcare to commerce and consumer tech. The firm has helped launch and commercialize more than 365 companies, including Attentive, Digital Currency Group, DocuSign, Flywire, Jet.com, LinkedIn, Redis Labs, Rent the Runway, SendGrid, and SurveyMonkey. BCV has $9.2 billion in assets under management with offices in San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Palo Alto.