IRIS MAKES £500K INVESTMENT IN TECH START UP FILMSTRO

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JUNE 2017: iris has invested £1/2million into technology start-up Filmstro through its innovation and ventures division The iris Nursery – to support Filmstro’s expansion into the advertising market

JUNE 2017: iris has invested £1/2million into technology start-up Filmstro through its innovation and ventures division The iris Nursery – to support Filmstro’s expansion into the advertising market.

Filmstro are the creators behind a dynamic music software product that offers an alternative to the huge cost of music rights for advertisers. The tool combines the speed and affordability of library music, with the bespoke qualities of a purpose-composed score.

David Caygill, Managing Director of The iris Nursery said: “We’ve been building strong links with smart startups and early stage companies since 2013, these collaborations help drive innovation at pace for both our agency and our clients. When we work with a company as good as Filmstro it just makes sense to invest - it demonstrates our long term commitment and helps to align our ambitions. The Filmstro team are passionate and talented the their prodct solves a real problem elegently.”

The demand for advertisers and broadcasters to produce quality video content at rapid pace is at an all-time high. The World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) found last year that video ad-spend has increased by $16bn in the US alone since 2010, driven in large part by the exponential growth in online content.

Filmstro was founded in 2014 by former commercial composer Sebastian Jaeger and his friend, software developer Chris Young. They recognised two issues with the old model of soundtrack creation that they became determined to fix – that it was a struggle for content creators with no musical training to communicate a brief to composers, while many composers struggled to make an income from their work.

In little more than 2 years, their software has become popular with film enthusiasts and vloggers through word of mouth alone. Filmstro now has over 30,000 downloads, and the company has announced a licensing deal with the BBC and partner affiliation with Adobe in recent months.

Sebastian Jaeger, Co-Founder and CEO of Filmstro said: “iris understand this industry intimately, and really get the problems we’re trying to solve. We can feel their support for our mission of democratising music production for the creative media industry, whilst rewarding composers at the same time.”

Iris was founded by 7 partners in 1999 with an ambition to challenge the more traditional agency network model and launched The iris Nursery in 2014 – to actively invest in start-ups and match-make them to bring more entrepreneurial, transformational thinking to big brands and businesses.