Meet Archive Valley
Founded in 2016, Archive Valley is a start up with a mission to democratise access to archives at an international scale. We’ve created an innovative conversation-based platform that maximizes access to relevant archives while also creating opportunities to discover new footage worldwide.
As creative entrepreneurs, our founders Melanie Rozencwajg and Jhava Chikli worked for over five years with numerous international clients and museums, giving their archives new life through technology and innovative design.
They came up with the idea for Archive Valley after going through the enormous pain of manually searching for archives among 100 different sources in 30 different countries, resulting in 235 hours of research, 100 invoices, 100 licensing agreements, and 15 different languages. This trying experience resulted in a strong desire to streamline the process for content creators seeking archives at a global scale.
Based in Paris and backed by an amazing pool of business angels, Melanie and Jhava created the first version of our beta platform with the help of CTO Devendra Bajaj, and brought together a one of a kind community of archive researchers around the world to put it to the test. We are now a fast-growing startup powered by a passionate international team with experience in technology, media production and archival research. Our beta platform is open to content producers of all kinds seeking unique footage for their projects.