Alongside this year’s Silicon Gorge: Spring Edition we’re going to be publishing profiles of a few of the companies that have made it through to the heats. This week, it’s Stornaway, a company offering a solution for creating Bandersnatch-style interactive films without code.
Here to answer our questions is Stornaway co-founder Kate Dimbleby.
What does your company do?
Stornaway is an application that lets producers create interactive films easily, without coding.
We are selling by subscription, launching publicly on May 1st 2020 and priced for adoption at £50/user/month.
What problem are you trying to solve?
Interactive films are a huge new wave of content coming to streaming platforms, but making them is difficult and expensive. Stornaway makes it simple and affordable by letting you plan, produce and publish interactive films, without coding.
As the $45bn planned to be spent on streaming TV production in 2020 grinds to a halt, producers are already turning to Stornaway to help them exploit their existing IP. We’ve been in stealth mode since February, gaining traction and working on interactive projects with TV household names in the UK and US, preparing to launch ourselves into the world on May 1st to change TV storytelling forever.
What makes your solution unique?
We offer the only end-to-end solution, and the only system that is compatible with professional production workflows. Sold by subscription and priced for adoption with clear routes to market, we have protectable IP, a peerless team and perfect timing. We see a future where Stornaway is a core writing and production tool for the 2 million-plus video producers in this non-linear world – and where almost every production company will have at least one Stornaway license.
What are you most proud of so far?
We started making our own interactive film (pre- Netflix’s Bandersnatch) with friends and industry contacts. We realised quickly that what was needed was a tool to make this content more financially and logistically viable for everyone. This was a big pivot through which we developed our prototype. The decisions we made in raising our seed investment and working with existing development and marketing teams have enabled us to build an MDP (minimal delightful product!) in time and within budget so that we can take advantage of being first to market.
By choosing to work with these local teams whilst exploiting our wider industry contacts we’ve built a powerful network of ambassadors for Stornaway as well as getting early traction.
How much are you raising and what do you want to use investment for?
- We are raising £1 million to scale up sales & invest in features and talent
- SEIS/EIS still available
What tools/people/services/organisa
Set Squared incubator in Bristol enabled us to have the confidence to take our prototype and turn it into a reality. Our angel investors provided seed funding as a convertible loan which enabled us to get to market quickly without having to value the company too early.
Where can we find out more about you?
Our website will be launched on May 1st. Until then, contact us directly at kate@stornaway.io and ruper
Or look at our Linkedin profiles Co-founders Kate Dimbleby and Rupert Howe, our CTO Nic Alpi (Cookies HQ) and CMO Natasha McKenzie (estrellagreen.com)
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