Workplace collaboration startup Air Labs Inc. said today it has raised $12 million in funding to hire more people and invest more in product development.

The Series A round was led by Tiger Global and included Lerer Hippeau, WndrCo, Slack Ventures, Red Sea Ventures and Advancit Capital along with individual investors Joe Thomas, Jenny Fleiss, Nic Jammet and Brian Lee.

Founded in 2017, Air offers a workplace collaboration tool that’s described as acting like a search engine and “Slack” for digital assets. The company’s software is designed to help “communicators” in fields such as marketing, sales and partnerships where visual collaboration is critical but where their creative assets are hidden across cloud storage.

The platform allows teams to optimize their creative process by importing images and videos from third-party services. Manual tasks are replaced with an automated structure complemented by workflow tools enabling sharing, commenting and instant collaboration.

Air distinguishes itself from tools such as Dropbox or Google Drive in that it allows teams to organize, search, review and manage visual content that drives brand experience. Having launched to the public only in March after a lengthy beta testing phase, Air has built a solid customer base that includes GlamSquad Inc., The Infatuation Inc., Dukes BasketBall, NeueHouse LLC, National Basketball Players Association, Spring Place, Thuma Co. and Industrious LLC.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Shane Hegde wrote a lengthy blog post on how the company raised money during the pandemic, including laying off 16% of staff and moving out of its office to conserve cash.

“There was no playbook for a pandemic launch or a quarantine fundraise… so we structured processes that felt right and made up the rest along the way,” Hedge writes. “After our launch in early March, few wanted to take a risk on a new product… so we found other ways to contribute and fit into the consumer narrative.”

Including the new funding, Air has raised $18 million to date.

Photo: Air