Users can upload videos while brands pay to use the organic content.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If you have a smartphone, there\u2019s probably troves of video data lying dormant in your camera roll. Montr\u00e9al-based GridBank<\/a> wants to turn that data into passive income for users, and a 2026-ready marketing strategy for brands.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody in the world has videos sitting on their phone. How on earth has no one built an economy or an infrastructure around this asset?\u201d<\/p>\n Laura Lalonde, GridBank<\/p><\/blockquote>\n While working in performance marketing, where part of her job was to test what kind of content encouraged the most clicks, GridBank founder and CEO Laura Lalonde noticed a frustrating irony: the videos that cost the least to make\u2014that didn\u2019t look like staged content\u2014consistently outperformed other forms of content.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody in the world has videos sitting on their phone,\u201d Lalonde told BetaKit in an interview. \u201cHow on earth has no one built an economy or an infrastructure around this asset?\u201d<\/p>\n She asked friends and family to upload videos they had sitting in their camera roll to her Google Drive, but that wasn\u2019t enough content. GridBank was her solution. The app, which launched in 2023, allows anyone to upload user-generated videos to a marketplace, where ad agencies and enterprises pay to use the videos for a more organic-feeling, social media strategy.<\/p>\n Users can upload short clips of a part of their day\u2014a step-by-step skincare routine or a sunset on vacation\u2014that aren\u2019t tied to a product or a brand. Ad agencies or brands that pay for the content can then use it in their marketing materials, with their logo. Lalonde argues that the value here is in the videos\u2019 authenticity, rather than their proximity to a brand.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBy using footage that is completely unstaged where you\u2019re just filming things out of joy, you actually adopt a media language that is even closer to the watcher,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n In return, GridBank pays users for uploading and selling short video clips. Users must consent to having their video data used by GridBank\u2019s enterprise customers, which can then use the clips in their own marketing materials. It\u2019s free to sign up, but earnings can only be cashed out once you hit $10. Lalonde said the platform is seeing tens of thousands of uploads per month now, with some creators bringing in a few hundred dollars per month.\u00a0<\/p>\n In mid-March, GridBank closed a $6-million equity seed round, led by StandUp Ventures, Version One Ventures, and GreenSky Ventures, with participation from AQC Capital and its associated angel network, Anges Qu\u00e9bec. Lalonde said the round included $1 million of secondary for some friends and family investors who had contributed around $500,000 total. She claimed the company was profitable before it hit the market for venture dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n RELATED: <\/strong>GreenSky closes $23.5-million sixth fund with help from new managing partner Jeff Brunet<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cLaura saw before most that every person with a phone is sitting on untapped assets with real economic value,\u201d StandUp Ventures senior associate Katheleen Eva said in a statement. \u201cGridbank gives consumer data a price tag for the first time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n GridBank\u2019s customers include TubeScience, a California-based creative video advertising firm, as well as the in-house team at rideshare company Lyft. Lalonde said the funding will help expand her 12-person team, particularly in machine learning and growth roles. The company also plans to launch an external application programming interface (API) to connect its videos to other enterprise apps, as well as a Pok\u00e9mon Go-style campaign in the fall to encourage more users to upload content from specific locations.<\/p>\n But unlike Pok\u00e9mon Go, which was eventually revealed to have been collecting hordes of user location and 3D movement data without users\u2019 explicit knowledge<\/a>, users are actively signing up to sell their data. The problem in Lalonde\u2019s eyes wasn\u2019t the market for this kind of data itself, but rather that users didn\u2019t have the option to make money from it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re going to build something that requires a mass amount of consumer data, consumers should be able to have transparency and benefit from that as well,\u201d Lalonde said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another murky part of user-generated content is consent. What happens if you find yourself in the background of a stranger\u2019s video, which they then upload to GridBank?<\/p>\n Lalonde says that\u2019s where her team\u2019s guardrails and moderation rules come in. For example, it doesn\u2019t accept uploads of videos featuring other people\u2019s likenesses. It uses humans on the team (including Lalonde) to review and approve uploaded videos. Though there is some automation, Lalonde is \u201cnot fully convinced that it\u2019s a good idea to completely remove someone\u2019s eyes from the process.\u201d<\/p>\n Feature image courtesy Unsplash<\/a>. Photo courtesy Aaron Burden<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Users can upload videos while brands pay to use the organic content.
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