New World Angels (NWA) has closed an investment in Raw Shorts, a Florida-based SaaS company that enables users to create customized explainer videos. NWA led the $1.0 million Series A financing round, joined by prior investors in the company, Mosley Ventures (Atlanta) and Accelerated Growth Partners (Miami). Currently housed in Miami's Venture Hive, Raw Shorts will use the funding proceeds to make key hires in product development and marketing.
'NWA's investment review process throughout the due diligence period was rigorous but always first rate. We are particularly excited to have Mr. Randy Wood, one of the two Co-Founders of Citrix, joining our board,' said Antonio Otalvaro, CEO and Co-Founder of Raw Shorts. Otalvaro believes that in addition to the financial investment, New World Angels' sixty strong membership, with backgrounds in a wide range of industries, will provide a breadth and depth of experience that will provide key guidance to his new venture.
'Antonio and the entire Raw Shorts team have built a phenomenal platform which offers a must-have resource to all companies needing to reach their customers and prospects who are mobile, social, and global,' according to Randy Wood, the New World Angels member who led the investment effort. 'In addition to an exceptionally talented management team, the capability of the company's product offering to provide scale and mass for its users is absolutely breathtaking. These factors are what initially attracted us to the Raw Shorts investment opportunity.'
'I'm excited to see how rapidly Raw Shorts gets new users on-board, now that it has some runway for the company to take off. We've been impressed with Antonio's accomplishments thus far, building out a very user-friendly tool that produces a high quality explainer video in mere minutes,' said Rhys L. Williams, Co-Founder and President of New World Angels.
About New World Angels (NWA):
The New World Angels (NWA) is a group of private investors dedicated to providing equity capital to early-stage entrepreneurial companies based in Florida. With chapters in both Tampa Bay and South Florida, NWA leads or co-invests at levels ranging between $600 thousand and $1.5 million internally, and at significantly higher levels as part of a syndicate. Members of NWA have extensive experience in founding, building, and managing companies in a wide variety of industries. In addition to providing funding, NWA members make their expertise and resource networks available to portfolio companies.
About Raw Shorts:
Raw Shorts helps businesses create explainer, demo, and marketing videos for the web with an easy-to-use drag and drop video builder in the cloud. Explainer videos have boomed in popularity as an alternative to static presentations, but many businesses find them difficult and expensive to produce. Raw Shorts solves this problem with a DIY explainer video builder that allows business users to make their own videos without hiring a studio. The Raw Shorts team is led by Antonio Otalvaro, Founder & CEO, and technical Co-Founder George Estrella. The two have worked together for over 10 years on a number of prior startups.