Most video creation tools force users to choose between quality and speed, either delivering polished results with time-consuming workflows or quick results with compromised quality. Tella, a screen recording and video storytelling platform, eliminates this trade-off by combining speed, quality, and creativity, enabling users to produce professional videos in minutes rather than hours.
At the heart of Tella’s solution is a proprietary rendering engine that generates high-quality videos almost instantly, regardless of length. A ten-minute video takes only slightly longer than ten minutes to publish — about the same time as recording it. Traditional video editing software, by comparison, might require 30 minutes or more for the same task.
Today, Tella secured $2.1 million in seed funding, led by Gradient, with participation from AltaIR Capital, Mento VC, Lobster Capital, The Singularity Fund, and several angel investors. This follows their previous $1.4 million raise from Y Combinator, Liquid 2, and Gradient. As Grant Shaddick, Co-founder & CEO of Tella, shared exclusively with TFN, the total funding now stands at $3.5 million, though the valuation remains undisclosed.
With this new funding, Tella is expanding its team and investing in growth, particularly in the development of its AI editing feature. The upcoming AI-powered editor, launching later this year, will automatically remove mistakes, apply effects and shot changes, add branding, and more, thereby eliminating the need for manual editing.
Behind Tella: the screen recorder that edits videos for you
Founded in 2020 during the remote work boom, Tella emerged from the experiences of Grant Shaddick and Michiel Westerbeek, former employees of InVision. Their time at InVision, a company that had already adopted remote work before the pandemic, revealed the need for more effective asynchronous communication tools.
As Shaddick told TFN, “We were using outdated video tools to make product demos and tutorials at work. We were frustrated by the user experience, the lengthy process, and the final outcome. It seemed crazy that, given how rapidly the world of software development was evolving, there weren’t better tools for making videos about the things happening on-screen.”
Shaddick, with his product experience from eBay and Bynder, and Westerbeek brought their vision to Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 batch (YC S20). Their mission was clear: bridge the gap between basic screen recording and professional production, making video storytelling accessible to everyone.
Tella’s platform serves the modern workplace, where video has become essential for communication, training, and marketing. Leading startups and enterprises, including Pleo and ChartHop, utilise Tella for a wide range of applications, from product demos to internal training and external communications.
What makes Tella’s product so special?
Tella offers more power than standard screen recording software while maintaining greater simplicity than traditional video editors. Built for entrepreneurs, educators, marketers, and support teams, it transforms quick screen recordings into professional videos for marketing, education, and training purposes.
The platform’s continuous evolution is evident in its regular feature updates, including recent enhancements to video selection and playback, which demonstrate the team’s commitment to innovation and improvement. One of Tella’s key innovations is its ability to record camera and screen separately. Users can easily adjust placement, combine multiple clips, and make edits, offering professional-quality results without the complexity of traditional editing software.
Shaddick explained to TFN: “Our focus has always been on how we can give our customers professional-looking videos with the least time and effort on their part. So we built our own video rendering workflow, which can render heavily edited videos almost instantly. This cuts down the time to share or publish a video drastically because users don’t need to wait around for the video to render.”
Speaking about competition, Shaddick remarked: “Loom is the major incumbent. But since we started, new, more direct competitors have emerged to go after the same space as us, like Screen Studio, Rally, and most recently Supercut.”
The screen recording market is undergoing a transformation, driven by the rise of remote work, the growing demand for asynchronous communication, and advancements in artificial intelligence. Following Loom’s $975 million acquisition by Atlassian in 2023, a new wave of startups, including Tella, Supercut, Screen Studio, and Rally, is reshaping the industry, moving from basic screen recordings to sophisticated storytelling tools.
Future plans? Automating the video editing process
Shaddick concluded, “This year we’re focused on completely automating the video editing process. Our customers just want great videos, really fast—they don’t want to spend time editing. Beyond this year, the product will move beyond just screen recordings as the primary video use case.”
He added, “Screen recording started as a tool for quick, low-stakes communication to give simple explanations or quick feedback. However, what we’ve seen is a shift toward much higher-impact use cases. Today, screen recordings are the foundation of marketing content for all software and software-adjacent businesses. Customers now need tools that go beyond basic recordings. They need more professional, polished video creation that can be created as easily as writing an email. That’s exactly what we’re building with Tella.”
“Tella is a versatile tool for quickly creating professional-looking videos, ideal for tutorials, product demos, customer support, and beyond. Their fast growth, sharp user focus, and passion for their own product convinced us that Tella’s approach to innovation is poised to lead the next generation of video tools,” said Igor Ryabenkiy, Founder and Managing Partner at AltaIR Capital.
“Tella’s completely changed the way I share ChartHop’s product releases, both externally and internally. It’s fast, efficient and easy for me to fire up Tella’s desktop app, record a quick demo, and turn it into a high-quality video that I can share on LinkedIn. And since the underlying assets are all saved, our marketing team can remix and repurpose my videos for various channels. It’s become a key part of our content strategy,” said Ian White, the founder and CEO of ChartHop.
