INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Uploadcare, a startup that aims to make using CDN platforms cheaper and easier for businesses, today announced that it has raised a $1.7
million seed round led by Runa Capital and Vendep Capital, with existing investors Vaizra Capital and LVL1 Group participating, as well
Uploadcare promises to offer an end-to-end solution for businesses that automatically optimizes the files, images and videos of its clients
and then delivers it over its CDN network or that of its partners.Uploadcare founder and CEO Igor Debatur told me the idea for the service
started quite a few years ago, while he was running a web development agency
Gathering files in different formats and sizes and then making those available in a way that was secure and easily scalable often turned out
to be a challenge — and one that others in the industry faced as well
In the early days, Uploadcare was basically a file uploader for developers
Over time, Uploadcare added back-end features, including the smart CDN that can modify content on the fly based on the client where it’s
displayed.For a while, the team developed Uploadcare as a side project, but by 2016, the project started getting traction and they decided
to shut down the development agency and focus solely on building out a proper product
“We started to build out a team and right now, we have more than 1,000 paying customers from very different sizes, starting from SMB to
large enterprises using the product,” said Debatur.Having worked for clients, the team obviously knew how to build products, but it had to
figure out sales and marketing on the fly
Unsurprisingly, a lot of today’s new funding will go to exactly that: building out a sales and marketing team
Debatur also argues that unlike some of its competitors, Uploadcare invests a lot in its own technology, though the company does partner
with other CDN vendors as well, based on its users’ needs.“The amount of data that’s created per day is rising at a breakneck rate,”
said Dmitry Chikhachev, general partner at Runa Capital
“With its robust infrastructure of delivery networks that span the globe, Uploadcare has quietly become a go-to solution for developers
and engineers at some of the world’s largest companies
With differentiated technology and a strong leadership team, we believe that Uploadcare is well positioned to accelerate its growth and
further solidify its leadership in the content delivery market.”
