The cameras, lenses and lighting gear to shoot even a comparatively modest production can value in the tens of millions of {dollars}. Rental is commonly the title of the sport, however the latticework of mom-and-pop gear leases will be arduous to navigate. BoxedUp takes a contemporary have a look at the house, making a rental market — a Turo or Airbnb for video gear if you’ll — the place gear house owners can supply up their gear for hire.
The firm’s mannequin works by aggregating listings from particular person house owners, native rental retailers and producers, giving content material creators entry to gear, and house owners a nationwide platform to earn cash on gear. For now, the firm focuses on the U.S. solely, however the funding will allow an improve of achievement capabilities, enabling BoxedUp to supply same-day supply in key markets.
“With this funding, BoxedUp can focus on expanding the capabilities of our platform, enabling us to better serve our customers, brands and local rental shops throughout the United States,” Donald Boone, CEO and founder at BoxedUp, stated of the funding spherical. The firm not too long ago closed $2.3 million, with cash from Slauson & Co., Collab Capital, Black Capital and Outlander VC. “We plan to build on this opportunity and grow our team, bringing on additional engineering talent and operational expertise.”
“The BoxedUp team is perfectly positioned to meet content creators where they are without the burden of equipment ownership and logistics while providing equipment owners a way to easily monetize their underutilized inventory,” Ajay Relan, managing accomplice at Slauson & Co., explains the considering behind the funding. “We’re excited for this intersection of the creator and shared economies and looking forward to supporting the vision and expansion of the platform.”
The firm initially began as a rental firm specializing in digicam kits aimed toward video conferences, digital occasions and comparable use circumstances.
“We were reacting quickly to many customer issues. The pandemic was on Full Tilt, and mainstream media really struggled with this idea that all of our talent is now absolutely dispersed throughout the world. And oh, by the way, they have really shitty cameras,” explains Boone. “I tested out a couple of camera kits, and it was looking great. A friend recommended that I should start pitching these kits to mainstream media outlets. The first company we sold to was Blavity. And then we picked up NPR and Amazon and Google and then the ball just got rolling really quickly.”
BoxedUp had stumbled right into a market the place the conventional gamers weren’t serving the buyer want; high-end Hollywood productions have their very own programs for renting gear, however for the vastly sized long-tail of small and medium-sized creators, there was nothing with the ease of use that the remainder of the web has gotten used to. Once the firm had slightly little bit of traction, issues began snowballing.
“Do you guys do documentary work? Do you have anything to make renting equipment for documentaries easier,” Boone recollects the questions began coming in. “We got to thinking ‘I wonder how this experience looks like if you’re shooting a movie or a music video,’ and we came to find out it’s actually pretty miserable. At the moment it’s all email transactions. A cinematographer or videographer writes something in the notes app of their iPhone, and sends it to a rental shop. Sometimes they’re DMing people.”
Building a market to make a majority of these leases simpler was the apparent subsequent step.
“We found a $10 billion opportunity where owner-operators are renting things out via Instagram and rental shops are still using really old websites,” says Boone. “We think that there was an opportunity for us to be the technology platform, the marketplace. The equipment owners don’t want to deal with the tech — they’re artists at the end of the day.”
In the early days, the firm stocked its personal gear, and it will work with producers, who would ship them their open-box or cosmetically broken gadgets. The firm would hire out on their behalf. Of course, high-end gear is dear, and the firm determined it will make extra sense to make the most of the gear that sits unused most of the time, connecting it with creators that want entry to high-end video gear.
“Instead of spending $30,000 to buy a camera to rent out one at a time, we could instead create the platform to connect people that have that $30,000 camera. So we’ve sort of shifted real-time and during COVID we owned everything, but right now our entire go-to-market is 100% empowering the local mom-and-pop rental shops and the individual owner-operators,” says Boone.