In this August 5th, we are pleased to interview three Brazilians who embarked on a road to change the way people record and share their memories. Meet Bruno Gregory, Marcelo do Rio e Marcio Saito, co-founders of Graava.
BayBrazil: How did you come up with the concept for Graava?
Bruno: In 2012, a friend and I were riding our bicycles on the beautiful Berkeley Hills when a car hit us. The driver left the scene without helping, but luckily we had brought a camera along to film our ride that day and we were able to identify the license plate on the video. We presented this material to the police who arrested the driver on the same day.
A few days later I was riding my bike again and realized I forgot my camera. I couldn’t stop thinking why I almost never used my action camera, which was so helpful on the day of the accident. The only reason I even brought it out was because my friend was a tourist and wanted to keep the video as a memory of his vacation.
That was when I came up with this idea to make a camera that would work as your brain does using machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. The goal was to create a camera that solves the biggest problem of camera users. People don’t have time or knowledge to edit the video they record and they simply give up trying to do it and their camera end up in a drawer and those special moments are lost forever.
BayBrazil: What is special about Graava?
Marcelo: Graava was developed to resolve the pain point of anybody who is recording a video. After recording a video you ended up with footage that often you don’t have time to make something really interesting out of it. Graava will use its AI software and sensors to automatically identify the most exciting moments in your video and allowed you to share it with one touch.
Bruno: When you think about a memory, the ones you hold onto are the ones that engaged all of your senses. When I remember the first time I went to Big Sur for example, I don’t just think about the view. I remember the feeling the wind blowing past me, the smell and taste of the spray from the waves, and the sound of them crashing on the rocks. Our senses are what identify an experience that becomes a memorable moment. With Graava we are giving a camera senses too. The camera’s built in sensors let it identify the exciting moments in what it films and our software looks at the data from all of these sensors to decide what footage is memorable. The sound of a motorcycle engine starting up, quick acceleration, sudden movements, these are great cues for moments that excite your senses. So by giving a camera a way to identify these moments we can emulate the same process your brain uses to identify a great memory. Graava takes this info and then uses to instantly edit your videos for you with the tap of a button.
BayBrazil: Which capabilities will lure customers?
Marcio: While the consumption of video has exploded in the past years, posting of original video by regular people is still very small. We believe that is because of the problem Marcelo has just mentioned. Users want to record and publish video, they just don’t have the right tools today. Graava changes that by providing a seamless experience, allowing users to record, upload, edit, post, archive video content at the touch of a button.
BayBrazil: You are going after a market dominated by publicly traded GoPro. What is your strategy to build Graava’s customer base?
Marcelo: We are the first camera of its kind. We’ve partnered with top tier partners to design, develop and plan a seamless experience, solving what still is a long work flow for today’s users. With Graava, you do what you do and let Graava do the work for you.
Bruno: Graava is a next generation camera and is the only one that automatically identifies your best moments and edits the video for you. All cameras available in the market today provide for you a problem after you finish recording. Graava is the first one that do not generate a problem, but creates a polished and shareable final cut for you.
BayBrazil: How important will these coming days be for Graava’s future?
Marcelo: We have had raised big interest from the media. For the past weeks we’ve been interviewed by the best media channels in the US. We are going to proof how desirable Graava is and will be carefully choosing the right partners to fund our Series A.
BayBrazil: We met when you were developing the idea. Your main challenge at that time was forming the team. Tell us about the experience of gathering two other Brazilian co-founders.
Bruno: This is a great opportunity to thank Margarise Correa. BayBrazil was a key piece for Graava existence. Margarise is our godmother! Through those great events BayBrazil organizes I was able to meet and pitch the project to Marcelo and Marcio who immediately saw the potential on Graava and joined me in this journey.
Marcelo: I would say that Margarise is not our godmother but our Muse. BayBrazil makes ventures like Graava possible. Congratulations for the great job on making a more welcome Silicon Valley for Brazilians.
BayBrazil: We are happy to help. And, you’ve come a long way. Congrats!
Bruno: Thanks! We appreciate the opportunity to talk about our project. Thank you for helping us along the way. This is just the beginning for us and we still have lot of work to do. Today is our launching day and our goal is to change forever the way people record and share their memories.
