Opal Snaps Up $17 Million Series A

<p><strong><span class&equals;"legendSpanClass"><span class&equals;"xn-location">SAN FRANCISCO <&sol;span><&sol;span><&sol;strong>&&num;8212&semi; Opal Camera Inc&period; has completed a &dollar;17 million Series A funding round led by Founders Fund&comma; with continued participation from Kindred Ventures and other investors including tech creators Marques Brownlee and <span class&equals;"xn-person">Casey Neistat<&sol;span>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We founded Opal under a simple principle – that the products you use the most often should be the best things you own&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Veeraj Chugh&comma; CEO and co-founder of Opal&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The company&&num;8217&semi;s first product was the Opal C1 webcam&comma; the first professional webcam with DSLR quality&period; The product was borne out of an insight that modern workers were spending more time on their webcams than on their phone&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Nearly 60&comma;000 people were on the waitlist for the C1 after its launch in <span class&equals;"xn-chron">December 2021<&sol;span>&comma; and the camera quickly became a favorite among designers and creators&period; In the two years since launch&comma; the company has focused on quality&comma; rewriting the camera firmware&comma; and releasing a new software app&comma; the Opal Composer&period;<b><&sol;b><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;The honest truth is that we started Opal because we thought the market for webcams desperately needed better hardware&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Chugh&period; &&num;8220&semi;What we realized is that you can bring a lot of people joy by giving them usable&comma; beautiful devices&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>With this latest round of funding&comma; Opal is broadening its vision to include new cameras&comma; as well as branching into other aspects of consumer electronics&comma; a category that has seen little progress over the past decade&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;This funding allows us to grow both the short and long-term visions of Opal&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said <span class&equals;"xn-person">Stefan Sohlstrom<&sol;span>&comma; co-founder of Opal&period; &&num;8220&semi;We&&num;8217&semi;re excited to further grow our camera business&comma; but we&&num;8217&semi;re also posing ourselves a fundamental question&colon; what does a modern consumer electronics company look like&comma; and what would it build&quest;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Opal&&num;8217&semi;s expansion into new product lines is centered around the theme that new technologies shouldn&&num;8217&semi;t be constrained to old form factors&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Phones were perfect for helping us take the internet anywhere&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Chugh&period; &&num;8220&semi;But now we&&num;8217&semi;re at the tipping point of a lot of new technologies&comma; where our relationship with devices and information is going to change in meaningful ways&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Opal&&num;8217&semi;s next products are being built for singular&comma; specific experiences like learning&comma; capturing memories&comma; and having meaningful conversations&period; Modern tools are built to do everything&comma; but in the process miss the nuance and charm of specialized devices that Opal thinks are needed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We want Opal to build these new devices that give us an intimate way to use modern technologies&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Sohlstrom&period; &&num;8220&semi;Sony did something similar in the 1980&&num;8217&semi;s&comma; building new devices that changed our lives&period; They started with humble transistor radios&comma; and we started with webcams&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The company has raised <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;20 million <&sol;span>to-date from investors including <span class&equals;"xn-person">Will Ahmed<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Carmine Arabia<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Hugo Barra<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Max Branzburg<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Leigh Marie Braswell<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Joshua Browder<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Adam Bry<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Jeremy Cai<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Oliver Cameron<&sol;span>&comma; Ilter Canberk&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Liam Casey<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Surojit Chatterjee<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Emilie Choi<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Larry Chu<&sol;span>&comma; Soleio Cuervo&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Matthew Dellavedova<&sol;span>&comma; Charlie &amp&semi; Dixie D&&num;8217&semi;Amelio&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Sara Dietschy<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Hong Feng<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Joe Gebbia<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Kevin Gibbon<&sol;span>&comma; Ros Gold-Onwude&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Manik Gupta<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Drew Hanlen<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Chad Hurley<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Lydia Jett<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Mike Krieger<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Michelle Kwon<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Kirk Lacob<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Sahil Lavingia<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Kevin Lin<&sol;span>&comma; Tobias Lütke&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Charley Ma<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Trevor McFedries<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Matt Mullenweg<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Zaza Pachulia<&sol;span>&comma; Carl Pei&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Ryan Petersen<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Anthony Pompliano<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Gokul Rajaram<&sol;span>&comma; Karri Saarinen&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Tim Young<&sol;span>&comma; <span class&equals;"xn-person">Ed Zitron<&sol;span>&comma; 444 Capital&comma; Acrew Capital&comma; Automattic&comma; Coalition Operators&comma; Cherubic Ventures&comma; Seven Seven Six&comma; Shrug Capital and WSGR&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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