Cinapse

Cinapse is building a new operating system for Hollywood.

Its platform modernizes and streamlines the logistics process associated with film and television production — the stuff that often happens behind-the-scenes.

Hollywood spends $250 billion a year on this process, from casting and hiring actors to scouting locations and renting equipment to storing key data and analytics.

But the tools they use to complete these tasks are stuck in the 1980s. Nobody has successfully created a new type of production software in more than forty years. Cinapse believes it has.

This startup’s executive leaders have experience in the film and tv industry, having worked for HBO and LucasFilm. They’re advised by David Anderson, a former Chief Operating Officer at Lucasfilm and general counsel at SpaceX, and Jim Kleverweis, a producer at Sony, Walt Disney, NBCUniversal, and WarnerMedia.

Cinapse is off to a fast start. Although it launched just eight months ago, its software is used on sixteen percent of all major TV and film productions, including content across platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV, and Paramount+.

Said Emily Hogan, an assistant director on the Apple TV show “Mythic Quest,” “Cinapse solves many of the problems that plague [Multimedia Messaging Service]… I never want to go back!”

And noted Inti Carboni, an assistant director on the blockbuster film “Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning” of Cinapse, “It’s like you were sent by God.”

Since launch, Cinapse has achieved more than 1,000 sign-ups for its software, an impressive start. And with more than 100,000 businesses powering media production, there is more room to grow.

In a nutshell, Cinapse’s software enhances and improves upon many tasks involved in movie and TV production. For example:

Instead of relying on a disconnected schedule and budget, Cinapse enables users to integrate these important factors. It allows for automated workflows, real-time collaboration, shareable data, third-party app integrations, alerts and notifications, and even Artificial Intelligence-assisted planning.

To generate revenue, Cinapse sells software-as-a-service subscriptions. The company believes this represents a $216 million opportunity, which is based on thirty-six million dollars in annual-recurring revenue (ARR) from 300,000 individual users and $180 million in ARR from 1,500 enterprise users.

Additionally, the company collects a five-percent fee on all rentals and bookings. This translates to twelve billion dollars in added revenue potential — five percent of $250 billion annual production expenditures.

Cinapse spent 2023 developing its software and beta testing it. And the company raised two-and-a-half million dollars from Y Combinator, Gaingels, and award-winning actor Neil Patrick Harris.

Moving forward, Cinapse aims to reach one million dollars in ARR in twelve months and get Cinapse software used on half of all productions in 2025.

Bigger picture, the company has a three-phase plan:

Phase 1 involves releasing its product at an affordable price and improve it based on customer feedback.

Phase 2 involves building the first app that directly integrates schedule data with budget data in real-time. This will enable producers and accountants to plan productions more accurately than ever. Cinapse will also train AI models to learn which scheduled work best and why.

Phase 3 involves making Cinapse an industry-wide platform that enables other services and products to integrate with its workflows.

Team Background

Herman Phillips - Co-Founder & CEO

Herman has extensive domain experience and was named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30.”

In addition to his role with Cinapse, he is Founder of Fourth Generation Pictures, a production company, where he also serves as a line producer. While in this role, he has managed the scheduling, budgeting, hiring, and logistics of more than fifty commercials, training videos, music videos, and short films.

Throughout his career, he has worked as a set-production assistant with Lucasfilm, HBO, and Amblin Entertainment. He has also worked for Hulu, Disney, and Netflix.

Herman earned a Bachelor’s degree in Film and Media Studies from the University of South Carolina.

Heather Wagner - Co-Founder & Advisor

Heather has worked in the film industry for more than seventeen years.

Throughout her career, she’s worked as a production assistant on several notable films and shows, including “Breaking Bad,” “Lone Survivor,” and “Justified.” She has also served as an assistant director on projects including “Hacks” and “The Goldbergs,” and she produced Lucasfilm’s latest project “Ahsoka.”

She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Film and Photography from Ithaca College.

Roger Tran - Co-Founder & COO

Roger is a product designer. Prior to starting Cinapse, he founded Iro House, a California-based architectural studio. He also founded Aloe Homes, a real-estate design company.

Earlier in his career, he was a lead-product designer with Jyve Corporation, which created platforms for the gig economy. Before that, he was an architectural designer with Field Architecture and Skidmore Owings & Merrill.

Roger earned a Bachelor’s degree in Art History from Stanford and a Master’s degree in Architecture from Harvard.

Co-Investors

Y Combinator

Seed-stage accelerator whose alumni include Scribd, Reddit, Airbnb, Dropbox and Stripe

Gaingels

Investing in companies led by LGBT founders and executives. Portfolio includes Excision (biotech company), Breaking Fourth (virtual reality company) and Chicory (a grocery advertising company).