Michael and Peter Cioni Launch Strada with $1.9 Million in Pre-Seed Funding

Hollywood and tech leaders back the Cioni brothers' Strada, an A.I.-enabled cloud platform that empowers creative professionals to automate, expedite and deliver higher quality content.

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 14, 2023 / Brothers Michael and Peter Cioni have officially announced Strada, their latest startup together, which is taking on the ambitious mission of driving creative professionals to work exclusively in the cloud. Following months of research, development and debate-all documented in their YouTube series "Starting a Startup"-the founders are also thrilled to announce $1.9M million in pre-seed funding, backed by major Hollywood players, including: filmmakers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa ("Rabbit Hole," "This Is Us," "Crazy, Stupid, Love"), Jason Fotter, co-founder and former CTO of FuseFX, the principals of Ataboy Studios, as well as well an investment group behind Donut Media, Endcrawl and Goldieblox. Panavision is also supporting Strada as a strategic partner, with President and CEO Kim Snyder joining the Strada Advisory Board.

From left to right: Peter and Michael Cioni, founders of Strada

"Innovative tools and technologies unlock so many opportunities but are simultaneously difficult to integrate into legacy workflows. Most people find themselves spending too much time preparing to be creative and not enough time actually being creative," says company CEO Michael Cioni. "Strada is completely re-thinking workflow, with the goal of giving time back to creative professionals so that they can focus on telling great stories."

Today, the team introduces Strada: the world's first A.I.-enabled cloud platform for content creators. Strada will combine a cloud marketplace with an intelligent workflow builder to help creative professionals improve the quality of their content.

Strada CFO Peter Cioni explains: "Many developers of creative tools require their users to have a high degree of proficiency or specialization. We find creative teams of all sizes often don't have the time to become experts in every tool, especially when they only need a handful of features. Strada is building for a future where high quality features needed in a workflow become available a la carte through our purpose-built cloud marketplace. And once the entire pipeline lives in the cloud, creatives will spend more time creating and less time managing workflow."

Earlier this year, Michael and Peter left their roles at Adobe and Netflix (respectively) to embark on their second joint business venture, following a hunch that the greatest opportunity for creative professionals brought by machine learning is not Generative A.I., but intelligent workflow automation, which has the potential to reset workflow entirely.

John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, executive producers of the hit TV series "This Is Us" and early Strada investors said, "Over the last decade, Michael and Peter have delivered numerous technological innovations that have dramatically improved our production workflows. We're excited to see Strada further elevate creative control in and out of Hollywood."

The Cioni brothers are seasoned pioneers in the emerging entertainment technology space, being closely associated with some of the industry's biggest tech transformations over the last two decades. They have launched post production companies, worked on some of the most cutting-edge feature films and television series, built content review platforms, spearheaded digital cinema camera development, and pioneered cloud acquisition technologies. With two decades spent on designing workflows throughout their illustrious careers, they are well positioned to reinvent workflow, which is only growing more complex with the explosion of A.I. and cloud-based solutions for the creative professional community.

Michael summarizes this new venture by saying, "With the advent of new A.I. tools, diverse distribution channels, and evolving consumer tastes, the industry is standing at the edge of a permanent transformation that impacts what we create and how we create it. Our early investors and advisors offer validation that what we are building at Strada is perfectly timed to capitalize on this transformation."

Download Strada Launch Media Kit

Sign Up for Strada

Be among the first users to put Strada to work on your project. While Strada is still being built, sign up today and you'll be one of the first to get access to an upcoming public beta.

As we build out the Strada marketplace, we are also looking for developers that are designing world-class creative tools to transform production workflows. Contact us to be among the first to pioneer the future of content creation and receive early access to our Developer Portal.

Join Strada

We're looking for people to join us on our journey as we build a new future of content creation. Be sure to check out our careers page for roles in engineering, product, editing, and marketing.

Meet Strada at IBC

Michael and Peter Cioni will be attending this year's IBC Show in Amsterdam. To arrange a press or business meeting with the co-founders, please contact Megan Linebarger at megan@grithaus.agency.

About Strada

Strada, founded by brothers Michael and Peter Cioni in June 2023, is the world's first A.I.-enabled marketplace designed to reinvent workflow, giving time back to creative professionals so that they can focus on telling great stories.

Strada is backed by filmmakers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa ("Rabbit Hole," "This Is Us," "Crazy, Stupid, Love"), Jason Fotter, co-founder and former CTO of FuseFX, the principals of Ataboy Studios, as well as well an investment group behind Donut Media, Endcrawl and Goldieblox. Panavision president and CEO Kim Snyder sits on the Strada Advisory Board.

Press Contact

Megan Linebarger, Grithaus Agency
megan@grithaus.agency
+1 617-480-3674

SOURCE: Strada