Remento, a company focused on capturing and preserving family stories, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Upfront Ventures. The Los Angeles-based company is launching its IS app today after testing it for a year.
The company’s new iOS app is designed to prompt users with conversational questions to prompt family members to share stories about their lives. After selecting a question, you can record a conversation directly in the app. Individual stories from these sessions are displayed in the app’s interactive playback experience, which can be shared with loved ones without any editing.
Ramento It was founded in 2020 by Charlie Green, who came up with the idea after recording a series of interviews with his mother shortly after she was diagnosed with cancer. Greeney told TechCrunch in an interview that his parents made a lot of home videos when he was growing up, and that after his father passed away in 2001, the family realized how precious these videos were because they let him hear them. His father’s voice. Five years ago, Greene’s mother was diagnosed with cancer and the family realized they were on the verge of losing the stories about her life.
“Even with my experience in documentary filmmaking, I didn’t know where to start,” Green says. “We came up with a solution to record the series of conversations we put on this digital timeline about my mother’s life that our family could access and add to. By taking the time to ask questions about her life, I discovered more of who I am. We quickly realized that this problem we were solving was not limited to our family. Families everywhere are dealing with these aging relatives, and children and grandchildren who don’t even know them, which is why we created Remento.
Green believes that recorded conversations hold more than cluttered photo libraries and permanent family trees. Remento says it’s based on knowledge of neuroscience, psychology and storytelling. The app is designed to make it easy to capture family stories through guided conversations. Remento aims to make it easy to get started by recommending questions tailored to specific family members. Green says the app is designed to break down the idea of enduring family stories into small bite-sized bites.
Image Credits: Rement
The app is free to use, Greeney said, reflecting the company’s belief that everyone should have meaningful experiences that shape their lives.
Green said the company plans to build a monetization model that includes additional features and functionality. The additional features make it easier to start conversations and improve the way the app recommends questions to storytellers. In the future, the app will use artificial intelligence and natural language to automate the organization’s processes after content is created. The company also plans to add photos to users alongside recorded conversations. For example, if your mom is sharing a story about her high school prom experience, the function allows you to add a photo of her in her prom dress.
Although Remento plans to launch an Android app in the future, Green said it’s difficult to determine when it might be released. The company is currently focused on developing the technology and will expand its reach in the future, he said.
As for the new funding, Remento will use it to expand hiring and extend current research and development efforts, including building features that stay in line with the company’s mission to help people create lasting family memories.
The company’s seed funding round was led by Upfront Ventures, along with a team of angel investors including Brooke Hammerling, Chuck Davis, Dan Nova, Amy Ross, Sam Immel and Sarah Harden.
“I’ve been working on this project for two years at this point,” Green said. “We’ve learned a lot on this journey. With every beta customer we’ve talked to, it’s clear to me that there’s never been a better time to bring this product to market. If the connections and conversations we’ve had through Windows and FaceTime during the pandemic have taught us anything, it’s not to take anything or anyone for granted.” Coming out of the covid-19 pandemic, it’s a time for families to connect, which is why we’re excited to build technology that we see as a complement to the human experience, not a replacement for what we truly love. Connections.”
