creative forcewhich provides an ai-powered content operations workflow for large retailers and e-commerce brands, raised $8.9 million in Series A funding, at a post-money valuation of $56 million, from Export Fund and Denmark Investment and Hearst Ventures.
The Denmark-based company, founded in 2019, helps retailers and brands create content for online marketing and merchandising campaigns. Its platform enables content production at scale, increasing efficiency by up to 30% so the company can focus on other things, Thomas Kragelund, co-founder and CEO of Creative Force, said in an email interview.
Kragelund went on to explain that unlike other companies that focus on single pain points, Creative Force was developed to be a comprehensive solution. It also works with enterprise-level businesses where content creation has become too complex (think multiple photo shoots, video production, booking models, editorials, post-productions and approvals) to handle with project management software alone and spreadsheets.
“The need for content has skyrocketed with social media and fast data connection speeds allowing for richer content,” Kragelund said. “Bringing creativity and operations together on one platform is an interesting intersection because creativity is about doing something new that hasn’t been seen before, and operations is the ability to repeat a process over and over again.”
The company initially focused on the fashion and clothing market. However, since its seed round in 2022, the company has seen 170% year-over-year growth in other verticals, including home improvement, furniture, jewelry, and groceries. As such, Creative Force nearly doubled its development team and created a dedicated ai team, Kragelund said. Additionally, Juliana Vail also recently joined the company to be CEO of the company’s ai incubator. ai/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>dream.ai.
The concept has become popular. Last year, Creative Force managed more than 10 million digital creative assets, including videos, text and photos. He is working with brands such as Columbia Sportswear, OTTO, ALDO, David Yurman and Tommy Bahama.
The new investment brings its total funding to $17.9 million and will allow the company to continue integrating generative artificial intelligence into its platform, expand its headquarters in Denmark, and establish a new US office in Boston.
In terms of technological development, Creative Force is investing in ai tools for 2D and 3D images and models, product images without the need for another photo shoot, and virtual models. Kragelund referred to another as a “co-pilot” tool, which, for example, will write the first drafts of product descriptions, after which a human writer can quickly review, edit and finalize them.
“We believe ai will be a game-changer in terms of content production at scale, and we are uniquely positioned to bring generative ai to e-commerce content production,” he added. “Looking ahead to 2024, the primary goal of our sales and other marketing teams is to establish Creative Force as the leading content creation platform in the US, similar to what we have done in Europe. “This round of funding gives us the resources we need to do this successfully.”
Meanwhile, technology advancing the way work flows is one of the reasons Megumi Ikeda, CEO of Hearst Ventures, was interested in Creative Force. Ikeda, via email, said e-commerce is not typically the beneficiary of such workflow innovation.
“The Creative Force platform adapts to its customers’ daily work patterns,” Ikeda said. “Customers find it intuitive and easy to use. New users can use it right away. Key third-party software, such as Capture One and Adobe Photoshop, are integrated into Creative Force to create a seamless, comprehensive workflow tool. Adding new modules and adapting the workflow and parties involved does not require weeks of waiting for software updates, unlike other competitors in the market.”
