The problem

Workflows in creative industries are surprisingly outdated and ripe for disruption. 

Production processes in creative professions are plagued with inefficiencies and manual workflows. Each step—from idea generation to concept visualisation, through to planning and budgeting—is time consuming, manual, and inefficient. 

The cost alone is significant: pre-production, for instance, alone accounts for up to 15% of the total creative budget. Moreover, many agencies and studios still rely on tools like Excel and Google Sheets, leading to fragmented communication, version control issues, and a lack of visibility into the overall process, leading to unnecessary costs and additional budget issues. This is even worse for smaller studios or agencies, who work on shorter form content and lack access to dedicated tools and resources.

The solution

Shai is an AI-powered platform that streamlines and automates the pre-production process for creative industries—making it up to 20x faster and more efficient. 

The platform improves efficiency at all stages, allowing you to rapidly visualise concepts by generating storyboards and visual references from scripts or briefs, automating resource allocation and creating dynamic schedules to optimise this, and generating accurate budget estimates based on project requirements and historical data.

Shai is initially focused on the video production market, partnering with major advertising and movie production studios like Hogarth, IDX, and Territory Studios, with ambitions to become the go-to solution for streamlining creative workflows across industries.

Why we’re excited to invest

Levi Young, sector director at Founders Factory, says: “Shai has built a first-of-its-kind AI solution targeting a huge global market for the creative industries, giving it the potential to lead the market and transform the video production process. Founders Leonardo and Jeroen combine tremendous experience in digital media and AI & machine learning, making them a formidable team to address this problem space. We look forward to work with them as they scale the business!"