Riverside.fm Raises Series from Creator-Heavy Cap Table, Launches New Editing Features, iOS App

Riverside.fm is an audio-video tool that collapses the pod/broadcast studio experience into your browser. The service captures lossless audio and up to 4K video locally, syncs it, and uploads as you go. Riverside’s recording tools held up in a chat between CEO Nadav Keyson and Ryan, whose home internet drops roughly three video calls a day. [Ed. Note: Dan/Hayden can corroborate.]

The Israeli startup is launching an iOS app and “magic editor” mode that automates recording, editing, and uploading. Riverside also just announced a $9.5 million Series A, led by Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six and rounded out with a creator-heavy cap table (Full disclosure: the round includes Morning Brew CEO Austin Rief).

We spoke with Keyson about building for creators, raising money from them, and Big Tech companies fast-following into this space. Top takeaways:

• The “network effect has really started,” as big names draw in guests and boost Riverside’s name recognition.
• Will vaccination and society reopening be a headwind for Riverside? “People are not expecting to go back to studios,” it's expensive and everyone and everyone has “experienced the process of doing this remotely.” Plus, hosts can book “much bigger guests” because they don’t need to be in the same city.
• On the question of live social audio (Clubhouse) vs. asynchronous audio (podcasts), Keyson bets the latter isn’t going away anytime soon. —RD