If you’re a creative professional — say, a filmmaker or game designer — working with a major studio, you have every tool at your disposal to execute your vision. But this model isn’t accessible, practical or affordable for all modern creators.

Seeing this gap in support, Lisa M. Watts, whose background includes leadership roles at Intel and Magic Leap, recognized an opportunity to replace traditional IT with a “studio in the cloud” that eliminates costly, complex setups, expands access and optimizes workflow.

“I wanted to build a platform that removed those barriers,” says Watts, CEO and founder of CREE8, “enabling creators to work from anywhere with the same power as an enterprise-grade studio. Truly reinventing the future of work.”

Her solution is CREE8, an El Dorado Hills-based platform that allows creatives to bypass traditional infrastructure for access to high-performance remote production tools. With CREE8’s cloud-based ecosystem, creative workflows can proceed without delay or geographic limitations.

In today’s fast-paced content landscape, creative teams can work with anyone, anywhere in the world. This is especially important, she says, as global collaboration and instant access help teams (whether in-house, freelance or studio-based) stay competitive and deliver quality work fast.

The platform is designed for four major sectors: media and entertainment teams, sports and live broadcasters, in-house agencies and game developers. On average, Watts says, creatives log about 60,000 hours on the platform a month with a petabyte of media files under management.

One of those customers is Marc Genin, who has decades of notable experience in film, television and telecommunications. As founder of Tyrell Corporation, he primarily covers live sports, such as equestrian show jumping, rugby and MMA. He met Watts last year at the NAB Show, an annual trade show produced by the National Association of Broadcasters.

“It was actually fortuitous,” he says. “I was there looking for a cost-effective post solution. I met her and she told me what she could do.”

Genin was sold on the platform and has been a customer for the past year. What he does is highly specialized, and with CREE8, he can now push live content directly without relying on a satellite truck. Plus, he says, he can collaborate with editors overseas without having to fly them to the U.S.

“Wherever you have computer access and can connect to their cloud, you can work,” he says. “I’ve been in this industry for 37 years and I recognize something good when I see it.”

CREE8 has been largely bootstrapped with expansion mostly fueled through revenue growth. To date, she says, the startup has raised $1.5 million in investment. Watts admits that a platform has been tried before, creating a space in the cloud with virtual machines, storage and collaboration tools.

“I often think, ‘Why now? Why this?’” she says. “Why is this an opportunity when there’s been so many big companies that have been doing virtualization and all these things for many, many years?’”

She concludes CREE8 stands out because the team operates with the “perspective of the creator in mind.” And what does the creator want?

“It’s just really about making their lives better, making it less expensive,” she says, “and then helping them create higher-quality content in a day and age where they’re competing for every eyeball they possibly can, and trying to get their stories out there.”

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