It’s not always the most visible startups that end up being the most sought-after. Archive Valley is one of them. Working in the background, Archive Valley is like a missing link. On one hand you have footage providers, thousands of them, and on the other hand, those who need footage. In the middle, you now have French Tech startup Archive Valley.
A century of global footage
Going back early twentieth century, mankind has started to create and produce films. The volume of this production has increased relentlessly ever since. After cinema, television also started to create content and now just about anyone does as well. The sources of footage are overwhelming. Yet, some people need these creations to enhance their own. The quest for relevant footage is on. But getting the right one in a limited timeframe is almost mission impossible. To stay in the game, users then go on to their favorite major source and end up picking the same footage as everybody else. If the request is highly specific, the archive source may not even deliver and one might have better chances if looking for a needle in a haystack.
Here comes Archive Valley, the missing link
Launched by Melanie Rozencwajg and Jhava Chikli, Archive Valley aims to be the go-to platform for both filmmakers and archive researchers. The market for content is booming. As always, users want a fast and efficient service. In fact, Archive Valley targets various users. Archive researchers, who need accurate and varied films and filmmakers, who can register and therefore sell their production. To be effective, the service cannot be limited geographically. Archive Valley has set up partnerships worldwide, with numerous sources (over 120) to be competitive. Having access to many sources is nice, sure, but useless if the files lack an index. Huge work went into indexing properly all resources to hasten research.
And there are times when a digital research is not enough and one needs a human input. Archive Valley can call upon over 500 archive researchers in over 60 countries to help get that unique footage and negotiate the prices and licensing. That combination of digital and human research provides fast and accurate results. With a touch of humor, Archive Valley has been deemed the “Tinder of video archives” for getting together filmmakers and researchers.
International team and no real competition
Archive Valley now has 1200 users in 70 countries. Quite a feat for the team of twelve (including two interns) settled in Paris. The team is definitely open to the world as it aggregates 15 languages. The recent fundraising of 1 million will lead to recruitment in product, sales and tech departments.
Oddly enough, there is no real competition for Archive Valley as they do fill a gap. Major agencies, like Getty, or large sources don’t offer the same services. And they lack the means to involve archive researchers worldwide.
Picking up speed and R&D
Ready for launch on September 10th is access to the platform for all and the arrival of the Premium Plan. Archive Valley has also provided footage for two major movies coming out very soon (stay tuned to know which!).
R&D is underway to implement NLP (Natural Language Processing). This will take request processing one step further to provide better results.
Filling a gap and providing a service that is both useful and fast is securing Archive Valley’s future. The Tinder of video archives is becoming a standard of its own.