How Shade Built a File System That Actually Works for Remote Creative Teams
Media production teams have a storage problem. They use Lucid Link for file streaming, Frame.io for review and approval, and Iconik for asset management. That's three subscriptions, three login screens, and constant file transfers between systems.
Shade thinks this is ridiculous. The New York-based startup built a single platform that handles ingestion, storage, review, and delivery. After raising $5 million from General Catalyst and Signal Fire, they now serve 94 customers and project $10 million in revenue next year.
I recently met with Shade during the 64th IT Press Tour.
The Technical Stack
Shade's architecture sits on top of S3-compatible storage. Customers can bring their own Wasabi, AWS, or Google Cloud Storage buckets, or use Shade's managed storage. Either way, the raw files stay in object storage while Shade's metadata service runs separately on AWS.
The desktop application uses FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) on Mac and Linux, with similar technology on Windows. When you mount a Shade workspace, it appears as a local drive. Behind the scenes, the FUSE layer intercepts file system calls and translates them into S3 requests.
Brandon Fan, Shade's co-founder and CEO, explained the approach: "We have a CDN infrastructure in front of S3 that speeds up access to various locations. We also have local upload capability—it uploads to the nearest server, then syncs to the origin server."
This architecture supports parallel chunk-based uploads and downloads. The result is fast enough that teams can stream 4K video without downloading entire files first.
Custom AI for Massive Scale
The AI components required more custom work than expected. Shade uses OpenAI's vision models for metadata generation—things like identifying shot types, lighting conditions, and visible logos. But the search engine is completely custom.
"We had to build our own semantic search," Fan said. "Most traditional models are too slow for millions of assets. We took open-source vision models and distilled them to run on CPU infrastructure instead of GPUs. This keeps costs down while letting users search through hundreds of thousands of assets."
The search works across images, videos, and documents. Type "people playing cards in a park" and it finds that exact scene. The system also handles transcription (via Assembly AI) and facial recognition.
For clustering and organizing large asset libraries, Shade built another custom algorithm. Standard clustering falls apart at scale, so they engineered a solution that handles the volume their customers generate.
File Locking and Conflicts
Creative applications like Premiere Pro have built-in project locking. For everything else, Shade creates conflict files when two users modify the same asset. If you rename a folder while someone saves a file into it, Shade preserves both actions and flags the conflict.
The system maintains a multi-tenant database that stores all metadata, permissions, and file relationships. When a client requests a file, it queries this service to get the S3 URL, then streams the data from object storage.
Integration Points
Shade offers webhook-based automation through a Zapier-style interface. Teams connect Shade to their project management tools, CRMs, or custom applications. The API exposes all metadata and file operations.
The platform also supports SSO via SAML, SCIM provisioning, and audit logging. Permissions work at three levels: workspace, individual users, and link-based sharing. You can share files with external collaborators through password-protected links that expire on a schedule.
Developer Background
Fan comes from an information retrieval research background, publishing papers on search technology before the transformer era. His co-founder Emerson, the CTO, is a roboticist who built the distributed file system infrastructure.
The team includes engineers from Lucid Link and Frame.io—people who know the competitive landscape and customer pain points firsthand. Most of the 15-person team works from the New York office to maintain tight collaboration between engineering and product.
Market Position
Frame.io sold to Adobe for $1.2 billion in 2021. Iconik raised $80 million. Shade raised $5 million and competes directly with both.
The cost advantage matters. A team using 10 seats and 10TB on Frame.io plus another 10TB on Lucid Link pays significantly more than the equivalent Shade setup. Fan claims Shade typically runs 30% cheaper than the combined stack it replaces.
Sales cycles run fast—usually a seven-day trial followed by contract signing. Procurement and legal reviews take longer, but the technical evaluation wraps quickly. Most deals close within a month of first contact.
The current average contract value sits around $10,000 to $15,000 annually for a 10-user, 25TB setup. Growth comes primarily through inbound traffic from Google searches and customer referrals.
What's Next
Shade plans to double the team this year, with most new hires in engineering. The roadmap includes sub-clipping (searching within video clips), expanded document workflows, and an app marketplace where third parties can build on the platform.
The vision echoes what Salesforce did for CRM and Notion did for documents—become the default system of record, but for files. Whether that happens depends on execution. But the technical foundation is solid, and the team has proven they can ship fast.
For engineering teams tired of duct-taping together file storage solutions, Shade offers a cleaner option. One platform, one API, one place where files live and teams collaborate.
