LottieFiles Raises $9 Million Series A Funding - Animation News

LottieFiles, a leading provider of Lottie animations based on JSON files, has successfully secured $9 million in a Series A funding round. This investment was spearheaded by M12, the venture fund affiliated with Microsoft, and included further participation from existing investor 500 Startups.

Established in 2018, LottieFiles maintains operations in both San Francisco and Kuala Lumpur. The company’s offerings encompass tools for designing, modifying, and evaluating Lottie animations, alongside a dedicated marketplace for these visual assets. Currently, LottieFiles reports a user base of approximately one million individuals representing 65,000 businesses, including prominent names like Airbnb, Google, TikTok, Disney, and Netflix. The platform is experiencing substantial growth, with a reported 300% increase in usage year-over-year. This latest funding elevates the total capital raised by the company to around $10 million.

Compared to traditional graphic formats like GIF or PNG, Lottie animations are notably smaller in file size while also offering the benefits of scalability and interactivity. Initially released as an open-source library by engineers at Airbnb six years ago, Lottie quickly gained traction among application developers. A key advantage of Lottie files is their cross-platform compatibility without requiring extra coding, and their ability to be modified even after an application has been released.

An illustration from animation startup LottieFiles

According to LottieFiles co-founder and CEO Kshitij Minglani, in a statement to TechCrunch, the company began as a collaborative space for designers and developers. Subsequently, they expanded their services to include tools, integrations, and supplementary resources. The marketplace was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing creators with 70% of the revenue generated from their work. LottieFiles also maintains a directory of animators available for project engagements.

While the core platform and tools offered by LottieFiles are presently offered without charge, the company intends to introduce monetization strategies later in the year. “Truly groundbreaking formats that reshape industries and significantly reduce design and development time are rare,” Minglani explained. “Our priority was to encourage widespread adoption of Lottie, and we believed that introducing monetization too early would have hindered that process.”

The newly acquired funds will be allocated to the advancement of LottieFiles’ product development plans, the expansion of its technical infrastructure, and the continued growth of its international user community.