Memria

What Memria does

Memria is a Brooklyn-based SaaS company that provides a cloud-based platform for collecting, curating, transcribing, and sharing personal audio and written stories. Founded in 2016 by Louis Bickford—former manager of the Ford Foundation's global human rights program—the platform targets mission-driven organizations including libraries, historical societies, truth and reconciliation commissions, museums, human rights NGOs, social justice organizations, alumni associations, and educators. Participants can record audio or submit text-based stories via email invitations, social media, direct links, or in-person story booth mode at events and exhibits.

The underlying technology combines audio recording and submission tooling, multi-language automatic transcription in 13+ languages, dashboard-based curation (review, editing, transcript creation), machine learning and natural language processing for theme, pattern, and sentiment analysis, and publishing tools supporting public story pages, social media sharing, embeddable players, podcasts, and video slideshow conversion. The platform is hosted on cloud infrastructure (AWS CloudFront via Strikingly) with an integrated archive tool that retains public stories pages after subscription ends. In 2024 the company spun out Biografika.io, a social enterprise that applies AI-assisted biography collection and SEO optimization to celebrate unsung heroes.

Memria generates revenue through a $90/month or $1,000/year Basic subscription covering unlimited story requests, multi-language transcription, story booth mode, and publishing tools, supplemented by custom-priced consulting services that include project design, kiosk/station development, oral history expertise, staff training, end-to-end project management, and ML/NLP analysis. The go-to-market blends self-serve signup at app.memria.org, founder-led introductory calls, partner referrals (notably OurStoryBridge), conference presence (including the World Economic Forum at Davos), and content marketing through The Speaky Wheel blog and downloadable resource guides. The company operates with 1-10 employees supplemented by a global network of consultants with deep domain expertise in transitional justice, including veterans of truth commissions across approximately 20 countries.

Name

Memria

Legal name

Memria (legal entity name not publicly disclosed in available sources)

Website

https://memria.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Memria is a Brooklyn-based SaaS platform that enables nonprofits, libraries, museums, and truth commissions to collect, transcribe, curate, and share audio and written personal stories through a cloud-based workflow with multi-language transcription and built-in publishing tools.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Oral History Software

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Digital Asset Management (DAM) for Media/Creative (MPAHAGAB)

akta.pro secondary industries

Media Asset Management (MAM) Platforms (MPAHAGAA), Content Retrieval, Distribution & Reuse Workflows (Interoperability/APIs) (MPAHAGAK)

Keywords

• Oral history software
• Story collection platform
• Digital storytelling tools
• Community engagement software
• Audio transcription services

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Software Subscription: Monthly or annual subscription model providing access to the Memria platform for story collection, curation, and sharing. Includes unlimited story requests, unlimited stories, basic support, and transcription services.
2. Consulting & Professional Services: Custom consulting services including project design assistance, story collection station setup, question design, staff training, webpage development, project management, oral history expertise, and reporting services.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Memria is a cloud-based SaaS platform that enables organizations to collect, curate, transcribe, visualize, and share audio and written personal stories for oral history, community engagement, truth and reconciliation, and alumni storytelling projects. The platform combines web-based audio recording (with optional photo uploads and in-person story booth mode), automated transcription in 13 or more languages, a project management dashboard, ML/NLP-driven pattern and sentiment analysis, and publishing/sharing tools including embeddable players, social sharing, podcast creation, and video slideshow conversion. A paid consulting services layer supports clients with project design, custom development, training, and end-to-end implementation.

Product overview

Memria is a digital storytelling platform designed for oral history projects, community engagement, and truth/reconciliation initiatives. The core offering is the Memria Basic Subscription, a cloud-based SaaS platform that provides a complete workflow for collecting stories (via web form, email invitation, or physical story booth), curating and analyzing them (with automatic transcription in 13+ languages, NLP-based analysis for patterns and sentiment), and sharing/distributing them (via social media, embedded players, podcasts, or video slideshows). The platform includes built-in dashboard management tools, archiving capabilities, and is offered alongside consulting services for organizations needing hands-on project design and implementation support.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Biografika.io: A powerful platform aimed at celebrating unsung heroes and 'sheros' by making it exceptionally easy to collect and share biographies. Uses AI-assisted tools and significant expertise in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to help make marginalized voices heard, seen, discovered, and shared. Launched as a social enterprise in partnership with Invisible Giants.

Products and services

• Memria Basic Subscription A subscription-based cloud platform that enables organizations to collect, manage, analyze, and share audio and written stories. Includes unlimited story requests and stories, story booth mode for in-person collection, publishing/sharing tools, automatic transcription in 13 or more languages, downloadable files, public stories pages that persist after subscription ends, and video slideshow conversion. Aimed at nonprofits, libraries, museums, truth commissions, and alumni associations running oral history and community storytelling projects.
• Consulting and Professional Services Custom-priced professional services covering project design, story collection station and listening kiosk development, question design, staff training, webpage development, end-to-end project management, oral history and archiving expertise, machine learning and NLP analysis, donor and board reporting, curriculum development, and podcast/audio compilation production for organizations running complex storytelling initiatives.
• Biografika.io AI-assisted biography collection and sharing platform (sub-brand of Memria) launched in partnership with Invisible Giants to help marginalized voices be heard, seen, discovered, and shared, combining Memria's story collection infrastructure with SEO and AI-assisted tools focused on biographies of unsung heroes.

Quantifiable outcome

• Transcription available in 13+ languages for broad accessibility
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles6 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability3 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

13 partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• Invisible Giants (Invisible Giants / Géantes Invisibles)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024Partnership with Senegal-based organization founded by Coumba Toure to democratize access to stories of unsung heroes and 'sheroes', focusing on addressing technological redlining and discoverability of marginalized voices.
• BiografikaflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024New initiative co-founded by Louis Bickford (Memria) and Christina Inge (Thoughtlight) to celebrate unsung heroes through AI-assisted biography collection and SEO optimization.
• OurStoryBridgecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNonprofit organization dedicated to helping libraries, museums, historical societies, and issue-oriented organizations develop community oral history projects. Actively recommends and implements Memria for its partner organizations across the US.
• Norwegian Human Rights FundcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerJoint initiative 'I Defend Rights' collecting stories from human rights defenders globally to create a permanent archive of audio recordings of their experiences.
• Truth Commission of Colombia (Comisión de la Verdad)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFour-year partnership through VivaVoz project to identify and share stories of resilience, reconciliation, and peace during the Colombian conflict, documenting community histories and testimonies.
• Afghan Voices of HopecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOngoing partnership sharing impactful stories of Afghan refugees through website, traveling exhibits, educational workshops, and public events. Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration in Paris acquired stories for its permanent collection.
• Museum Association of New York (MANY)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with OurStoryBridge on project 'A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy' supported by National Endowment for the Humanities and William G. Pomeroy Foundation.
• LAFF Society (Life After Ford Foundation)coreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorAssociation of former Ford Foundation employees using Memria to collect oral histories and preserve institutional memory through the 'Recollection Collection' project.
• VivaVozcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOrganization working with Colombian Truth Commission to collect and disseminate stories about the Colombian conflict, with tagline 'the key to ending conflict and to non-repetition is in the voices of communities'.
• Keene Valley LibraryminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorSponsored the Adirondack Community Story Project built on Memria platform, along with OurStoryBridge.
• Chicago Veterans for PeaceminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorUsed Memria for My Lai Memorial traveling exhibit with Story-Telling booth and Story-Listening booth components.
• Partnership for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerOngoing consulting on complex questions of memory, conflict, and narrative construction in Ukraine including lectures at Kyiv School of Economics.
• International Coalition of Sites of ConscienceminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerReferenced as partner organization in memorywork and truth commission projects. Memria supports similar narrative change and memorialization efforts.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• StoryCorps: US nonprofit best known for its oral history recording platform and StoryBooth infrastructure. Most direct analogue to Memria in mission (preserving personal stories) and target audience (communities, libraries, museums), though it operates largely as a nonprofit program rather than a paid SaaS product.
• StoryWorth: Subscription service that helps families collect and preserve loved ones' stories, compiled into a printed book. Direct peer on subscription-based story collection, with comparable simplicity and emotional positioning, but focused on family/biography rather than institutional oral history.
• Trint: AI transcription and story editing platform used by journalists and content teams. Overlaps with Memria on transcription-as-workflow plus collaboration and publishing, though it is built primarily for newsrooms rather than community/heritage institutions.
• Descript: Audio/video editing platform with built-in AI transcription, collaboration, and publishing tools. Comparable to Memria on the audio-and-transcript workflow, but positioned for podcasters and creators rather than oral-history/heritage programs.

Emerging players

• Sonix: AI transcription and subtitling service supporting 40+ languages. Adjacent competitor on the transcription layer Memria uses as a key differentiator, though Sonix does not provide story collection, curation, or community publishing workflows.
• Mukurtu CMS: Open-source cultural heritage platform designed for indigenous and community-based archives, with strong protocols around access and sharing. Competes directly with Memria for community storytelling and reconciliation projects, with a different (free) monetization model.
• Hearken: Audience engagement platform used by newsrooms and public-interest organizations to source questions and stories from communities. Comparable to Memria on the public-engagement story collection layer, though targeted at journalism rather than heritage/reconciliation.
• VoiceWaves: Long Beach-based community storytelling platform that trains local storytellers and publishes neighborhood audio narratives. A close mission peer to Memria's community oral history work, operating at a much smaller scale and focused on one metro area.
• Omeka: Open-source digital collections platform widely used by libraries, museums, and archives to publish and curate digital objects. Competes with Memria in the library/archive use case, but lacks purpose-built audio story collection and multi-language transcription.

Broad incumbents

• Rev: Large transcription and captioning services provider combining AI and human transcription. Overlaps with Memria on multi-language transcription but is a broad utility rather than a story-collection platform.

Market position

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/memria_org
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UC4I-TRQbiWfEdDvldAXg5ew
• Facebookfacebook.com/memria
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/memria

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Memria