Celtx – Scripting a Great Story
8th February 2015Build Ventures is entering Newfoundland and Labrador with a major investment, supporting Celtx — a startup whose software is being adopted by companies in film, video and theatre around the world.
With CEO Mark Kennedy at the helm, the St. John’s-based company began 15 years ago with the simple idea of taking a range of film production processes—from script writing, to production notes and set designs—and moving them from paper to digital.
“This is a tremendous opportunity,” says Kennedy. “We’re reinventing how an industry does its work, and it’s a global business. We make 95 percent of our money outside Atlantic Canada.”
Kennedy and Build Ventures’ Patrick Keefe have known each other for a long time, making it a no-brainer for Kennedy to reach out to Build Ventures when it came time to make another fundraising push in Spring of 2014. Formal meetings with Keefe and his fellow principal at Build Ventures, Rob Barbara, led to the February 2015 investment.
Over the years their offering has expanded from a straightforward desktop product to adding software-as-a-service (SaaS), which they launched on the cloud in 2012. Since then the company has seen their revenues grow by up to 10 per cent monthly during the film industry’s busy January-April corridor for script and design services. Meanwhile the total number of users has shot up to an estimated 4 million.
Celtx has previously been supported by Killick Capital, again contributing funds to this round which is being led by Build Ventures.
“Mark and the Celtx team have built a great product and grown a significant user base organically,” says Patrick Keefe. “This investment will give the team the resources to expand on their impressive customer traction milestones and growth rates.”
In the fall of 2014, Celtx reached monthly recurring revenue of $100,000.
With Build Ventures’ support, Celtx is looking to nearly double their number of employees in the next year, and fuel the continued development of its game-changing software.