Blackbird brings real-time collab to video editing

elevate.io's integration with PubNub empowered them to deliver seamless real-time collaboration—bringing teams together in the browser to edit video like never before.

Solution

Push notifications
In-App chat

uptime since launch: 100%

**Sumit Rai**Chief Product Officer, Blackbird

What PubNub enables

Live presence and multiplayer cursors
Threaded comments and @mentions
100% uptime since launch

Overview

Who elevate.io is?

Industry: E-Learning

Blackbird plc, long known for powering professional-grade video workflows through its cloud-native video editing solutions, launched elevate.io to usher in a new era of content creation: seamless, browser-based, real-time collaborative video editing.

Aimed at creators, corporate teams, and media professionals, elevate.io mirrors the impact Figma had on design, making professional video editing more accessible, intuitive, and team-centric.

“Our vision was simple: make online video editing as accessible and collaborative as Figma made online design,” said Sumit Rai, Chief Product Officer, Blackbird.

Challenge

Real-time collaboration at hyper scale

Unlike legacy video editors that require heavy desktop installations and isolated workflows, elevate.io was purpose-built for modern teams that wanted to enable real-time editing, commenting, and review cycles in the browser, without compromising quality or performance.

To bring this vision to life, elevate.io needed a robust, scalable messaging infrastructure to support live user presence, synchronized playback, collaborative annotations, and cursor tracking. The challenge? Real-time rendering and collaboration in video editing is far more complex than other collaborative tools like docs or design software.

Solution

Real-time collaboration powered by PubNub

After extensively evaluating cloud vendors, elevate.io chose PubNub as the backbone for its multiplayer functionality. With PubNub, they were able to rapidly build and validate core features that define elevate.io, including:

Live User Presence: Show who’s in a session, in real time.

Multiplayer Cursors: Follow teammates’ playback and editing movements.

Real-Time Comments: Leave threaded comments, @mentions, and replies without missing a beat.

The PubNub integration was up and running in days, thanks to clear documentation and strong support from the account team.

“PubNub was selected as the most flexible for future needs. It felt like a true partnership,” said Huw Dymond, Blackbird.

What’s next: redefining the future of video creation

elevate.io is the first online video editor to bring multiplayer collaboration into the browser at this scale. And the company is just getting started. As creative workflows evolve, elevate.io is set to become the go-to tool for any team looking to streamline and modernize how video is made.

“Just as Google Docs and Figma transformed their industries, elevate.io is revolutionizing online collaborative video editing,” said Ian McDonough, Chief Executive Officer, Blackbird.

Impact

Faster time-to-market, seamless collaboration

By relying on PubNub, elevate.io avoided building its messaging infrastructure, saving development time, operational costs, and accelerating go-to-market delivery.

Key outcomes include:

100% uptime since launch: With a global user base spanning 140 countries, elevate.io delivers consistent real-time experiences from anywhere in the world.

Lower engineering overhead: PubNub’s infrastructure allowed elevate.io to focus on their core product innovation, not backend maintenance.

Greater Accessibility: Even users on the free Starter plan benefit from real-time collaboration features.

“Seamless integration of high-performance, low-latency messaging gave us the foundation to execute our vision,” said Huw Dymond, Blackbird.

With PubNub, elevate.io:

Powers real-time collaboration features like live user presence, synchronized playback, and multiplayer cursors—supporting teams across 140 countries.
Enables in-browser commenting with threaded replies and @mentions, boosting collaborative review without context-switching.
Achieved 100% uptime since launch, ensuring uninterrupted editing sessions globally.
Accelerated development and go-to-market by eliminating the need to build messaging infrastructure in-house.
Reduced engineering overhead, allowing the team to focus on core product innovation instead of backend maintenance.

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