Kyle
You know we love startups with silly names. Obviously Foap is one of those startups. The Swedish startup is creating a stock photography market place where the photographers can be anyone in the world with a smartphone or a connected camera.
The premise is simple. The user registers with the Foap platform. They upload pictures of whatever they want to and Foap sells the pictures for $10 a piece to news outlets, bloggers, and other users. You sell the rights to the photo away but heck most smartphone pics happen by accident and even if they aren’t by accident, they don’t take but a second to shoot.
Foap splits the $10 right down the middle and the photographer gets paid. Funny name, easy startup right?
To date Foap has nearly 1 million images for sale on their platform. They’ve seen over $150,000 downloads of their app and 1.4 million photos uploaded since launch.
That was enough to land $500,000 from Asian investment firm Jade Global Investments.
“We always knew we had something pretty special to offer iPhone users but the success we’ve experienced so far is unbelievable and the interest in investors from Asia has been overwhelming”, said co-founder, David Los. “We’re fully focused on growing our market of iPhone images and establishing ourselves as one of the major players in the stock imagery industry.”
“We are delighted to announcement our investment in Foap, a company that we’ve been monitoring closely over the past six months,” said Jacky Lu, CEO of Jade Global Investments based in Asia. “We believe Foap can be extremely successful and as one of the first in this space to go to market, it stands a great chance of success. The company is perfectly positioned to make a big impact on the stock photography industry and that’s something we want to be a part of.”
“We are very excited to have such an experienced investor on board. It’s not just the funding that will benefit the company, but the knowledge and expertise Jacky and the team will be able to offer”, commented Los. “The success we’ve experienced so far has been unbelievable and this round of funding means we can continue to drive forward towards reaching the ambitious goals we have set for the company
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