German proofing software Filestage raises €2.8M; here’s how it helps businesses speed up their content approval

Stuttgart-based an all-in-one online proofing software, Filestage, has raised €2.8M in its Series A round of funding led by Newion – an Amsterdam-based venture capital firm, along with existing investor HTGF and Seed+Speed Ventures.

Use of the raised capital

Niklas Dorn, CEO and co-founder of Filestage, says “We are super happy with the new funding and this syndicate, as we believe that more teams all over the world deserve a rock-solid review workflow.”

He also mentioned that the raised funds will be used to develop the product, particularly investing in the AI and analytics capabilities of the platform. “We will also continue to invest in integrations and partnerships to ensure seamless customer workflows,” added Dorn.

Everything about Filestage

The company was founded in 2015 by Niklas Dorn, Mael Frize, and Simon Kontschak. Filestage is a web application to share, review, and approve media content with teams and clients. Instead of sending emails back and forth, reviewers annotate their comments and change requests directly inside the file. Revisions in Filestage are easy, efficient, and clearly documented.

As per the founders, from their experience in the creative industry, they knew how important the review and approval of digital content is, so they started to organise this in an efficient and transparent way.

According to Carsten Maschmeyer, founder, and MD at Seed+Speed, “95% of the companies still use email and legacy commenting tools like Adobe Acrobat, MS Office, and Dropbox to share and discuss content but I am convinced that successful companies will invest in online proofing software more and more, to avoid email chaos and be effective.”

Currently, Filestage enables online proofing in less than half the time. The company’s skilled team works remotely from wherever works best for the customer, in countries including Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, India, and Spain. As of today, users from 195 countries have reviewed 5.2 million files via Filestage.

Filestage is used by various brands such as Sharp, Sixt, dm, GroupM, Head, Ab-InBev, Lufthansa, Rabobank, and Cambridge University Press. Braun Medical Devices have stated that their review turnaround time reduced by 75 percent after using the software.