Danish startup Wedio raises €1.25M to grow its camera-sharing community for ambitious content creators

With brands seeking to grow their reach and competing to attract the same customer segment, some have turned to visual storytelling to create original and authentic content using visual means such as photographs, videos, illustrations, and other forms of visual media. But creating visual stories is not as easy as it seems on the surface.

Creators need the right tools and equipment to create compelling visual content. Daniel Sand experienced this problem first-hand during his time as a freelance filmmaker back in 2018. He had to turn down many film projects because he couldn’t afford to access the needed gear. It was this that led him and his friends Kasper Vesth and Morten Aebeloe to start Wedio, a Denmark-based tech startup that helps filmmakers and photographers rent professional film equipment — with global insurance.

Fast forward five years later, Wedio is now the fastest-growing European camera-sharing community with almost 100,000 monthly creators. Despite the ongoing funding drought and the current economic climate, Wedio was able to secure millions of dollars in funding, a testament to investors’ confidence in the company.

In March, Wedio secured €1.25 million in its seed investment round from two Danish venture capital firms, VF Venture and Founderment. In addition, Wedio also raised over €150k via a crowdfunding campaign on the platform, Wefunder. With fresh capital of €450k, this brings the total seed round to €1.25 million. Wedio has experienced exponential growth since its inception in 2018 and now plans to expand its community to other European markets.

The community becomes co-owners through crowdfunding

It was a strategic choice to expand their investment round through crowdfunding. Daniel Sand, co-founder & CEO of Wedio, explains: “Over the past few years, more and more of our members have actively asked how they could become a closer part of Wedio and our journey. At the same time, from the beginning, we have tried to position ourselves as a creator community rather than a tech company. By allowing our members to become co-owners of Wedio, we believe that we can build an even better product in close collaboration with our members and at the same time build loyalty and ambassadors in the industry.”

From growth to profit

Unlike other startups we’ve covered in the past, Wedio began with a straightforward notion of democratizing access to professional film equipment, enabling aspiring content creators to rent and lend securely to one another. Presently, Wedio supports over 100,000 content creators monthly from throughout Europe in enhancing their content production capabilities. Between 2019 and 2022, they achieved average annual revenue growth of 180%. With the recent infusion of capital, the company anticipates reaching profitability within the next year.

“There is a huge potential in the sharing economy concept, and our market has been global from day one, which is why we have focused on top-line growth until now. We have now built a solid foundation that enables us to expand into more countries with the new capital and at the same time shift our focus towards our bottom line. The goal is to become profitable within the next 12 months,” Daniel explained.

Huge potential in the sharing concept

The popularity of video content is surging on various platforms, including emerging ones, and Forbes predicts that all businesses will soon need to function as media companies. With more than 50 million active content creators globally, demand for equipment is high. The industry currently generates an estimated $152 billion in revenue annually, and Fortune Business Insights has forecasted a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13% in the global media and entertainment sector between 2018 and 2026.

Tapping into a megatrend

Johan Bitsch Nielsen from EIFO’s venture team explains: “The creator economy has experienced massive growth in recent years, and Wedio has demonstrated how to be an important part of everyday life as a filmmaker or photographer. Not only does the Wedio team help creators access camera equipment, they also help creators access the needed network and knowledge to succeed and craft better stories. In my opinion, Wedio is a great example of how future marketplaces must turn into communities to differentiate from competitors.”

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• Source: https://techstartups.com/2023/04/17/denmark-based-startup-wedio-raises-e1-25m-to-grow-its-camera-sharing-community-for-ambitious-content-creators/