Spyne, an AI-driven Indian tech company that helps Online businesses with all kinds of photoshoots and photographers to leverage their visual content for business growth, has successfully raised an undisclosed amount as growth capital in their Pre-series funding.
The investment was led by Angellist, Smile Group, Manish Amin (COO, Yatra), Anil Goel (CTO, OYO), Anubhav Sonthalia (CEO, Sokrati), Deepak Mittal (CEO, TO THE NEW), among other entrepreneurs from leading companies in India. The company raised its seed funding last year, which was led by the Smile Group and other angel investors.
The Gurgaon-based startup will use the current funding to build and reinforce the AI-based image editing suite that will help businesses in getting images edited 4x faster with the highest precision. The technology will also ensure the marketplace image specifications and customizations are followed during the bulk processing, helping businesses save up to 90% of the costs.
Commenting on the development, Sanjay Kumar, Co-founder & CEO, Spyne, said, "Every business – big or small – needs HQ images and videos to sell their products and services online. We are in the business of providing the best visual content and photoshoot services to them anywhere, anytime at ~30% quicker with 99.99% accuracy. With the network of 2500+ highly curated photographers across 35+ cities and industry-first Image processing and distribution technology, we are uniquely placed to cater to the large incoming demand coming from businesses in the post Covid-19 era."
"With the current round, we are looking to invest deeper in building the next set of computer vision and Deep tech applications solving complex use cases such as auto editing of images in a click, automated curation and quality check, On the fly Image and Design generation, etc. This will enable us to open new markets in the coming months not only in India but thousands of businesses outside India." he further added.
Currently, an editor can manually edit at max 150 images per day. The company's high tech editing suite will help accomplish hundreds of edited images in minutes, guaranteeing up to 90% margins, 99.9% accuracy, and 100% on-time delivery.
"I'm excited about how Sanjay and his team at Spyne are working to solve the Image processing problems, faced by most Online Businesses globally, including us at Oyo. Producing personalized high-quality content at an industrial scale is something which very few companies have been able to achieve anywhere, and I am fully behind the team to achieve it eventually," said Anil Goel, CTO, OYO.
The company is also reinforcing its business operations for SpyneStudios and freelance photography networks across the country. Last month, the company opened its first studio in Delhi NCR and added over 150 freelance photographers to its existing network of over 2500+ freelancers. Spyne plans to spread across tier 2 and tier 3 cities and then to South-Asia and the Middle East to help businesses order any kind of shoot at scale at any time and anywhere.
Currently, Spyne has 2000+ photographers actively using its high-tech content sharing platform, SpyneShare, which helps photographers generate reviews and more business. So far, 6M+ photos and videos have been shared through SpyneShare product. The company plans to extend this product to businesses as well with add-on AI tech-features to instantly track all their products from pickup for a shoot to final image delivery. This perhaps is a much-needed feature that doesn't exist in the market so far.
"Internet marketplaces all across the globe are growing exponentially. Millions of high-quality images and videos of products/services are published every day on marketplace platforms to improve their traffic and conversions. Still, high-quality content delivery and management remain a daunting task. We see the founder-market fit in Sanjay, given his past experience. Spyne has the potential of becoming a global company," says the Angellist India team.
The company currently provides a wide array of photoshoot services such as HQ images, videos, social media content, 360-degree shoots, 3D rendering, etc to cater to industries including e-commerce, real estate, fashion, Jewellery, and food.
Spyne has worked with top national and international brands such as Amazon, Snapdeal, Oyo, Big Basket, WedMeGood, Yatra, PP Jewellers among many others.
Anubhav Sonthalia, CEO, Sokrati says, "Large companies & small sellers alike do not have easy access to high-quality, timely, and professional talent to get converting content on demand across the entire span of India. Spyne, with its core Shoot and AI-driven Image Processing technology, has built a platform that will make the production of Images and Videos at scale available to every seller, and it is as easy as ordering food."
