As evidence of the growing power of the “creator economy,” Lightricks has secured a visual content creation startup an impressive $130 million investment round valued at $1.8 billion. The company, already almost a “double unicorn”, plans to make use of the recent investment to further develop its business operations and expand its current suite of mobile applications.
In a statement, co-founder and CEO Zeev Farbman said: “Through all of our diverse creative apps, we plan to continue to pioneer pioneering technology and provide all users with the tools and capabilities they need to express themselves and achieve their goals.” creative goals. Lightricks plans to boost its cutting-edge technology to develop tools and services that make it easier for creators of every type to create content and facilitate monetization.
Financing details
The recent Series D round includes $100 million in core funding and $30 million in secondary funding, bringing Lightricks’ total funding to $335 million.
The $130 million Series D investment round was co-led by New York-based global private equity and enterprise capital firm Insight Partners and Hanaco Venture Capital. Insight Partners is a leading global enterprise capital and private equity firm focused primarily on high-growth technology and software corporations that are driving industry transformation. Hanaco enterprise capital is a fund based in New York and Tel Aviv that invests in growing and late-stage startups from around the world. It’s protected to say that Lightricks meet all of those criteria in principle.
“The creator economy has changed the way we as a society use social networks. Audiences consume information through a variety of content channels every day. The Lightricks platform gives creators access to a broader, more professional and high-quality set of content optimization tools,” said Pasha Romanovski, co-founder of Hanaco Ventures. “At a time when we are seeing content creators monetize their content on social media at a new level, it is clear that the Lightricks platform has the ability to create a one-stop shop that will be meaningful for its users.”
Existing investors Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Clal Tech, Harel Insurance and Finance and Greycroft also participated in the investment round. New investors Migdal Insurance, Altshuler Shaham and Shavit Capital also participated in the round, closing the share.
Starting trip
Headquartered in Jerusalem, Lightricks was founded in 2013 by five Ph.D. students: Zeev Farbman, Nir Pochter, Yaron Inger, Amit Goldstein and Itai Tsiddon. As one of the first app developers to introduce a subscription model in the Apple App Store, the company quickly demonstrated its creative and forward-thinking strategy, proving that customers can pay for and subscribe to apps when they supply significant value to them.
Of course, it was a huge success, but not only because of its groundbreaking subscription model – mainly because Lightricks has an uncanny knack for creating apps that individuals actually needed, moderately than simply jumping on the bandwagon.
In a short time frame, Lightricks has gained fame for its suite of high-quality photo and video editing tools that have grow to be extremely popular among social media content creators, especially on Instagram. Their flagship application is undoubtedly Facetune, which has been extremely popular among content creators and social media users since its launch. Using the app, users can enhance and retouch selfies, which has earned developer accolades reminiscent of Apple’s App of the Year and Best App of the Year on Google Play.
The Lightricks family of apps currently boasts greater than 5 million paid subscribers and 29 million monthly energetic users, in accordance with spokespeople. The company’s hottest products include Facetune 2, Facetune Video and Videoleap. In total, the prolific app developer has amassed over 500 million downloads worldwide among Android and Apple users, bringing its 2021 revenue to $200 million. The company is expected to grow by one other 40% in the coming yr.
Platform and scaling vision
With this latest investment round, Farbman said in a statement that Lightricks will use the recent funding to expand and create recent platforms and tools for content creators in an effort to “become a one-stop shop for resources including creative tools, services, and monetization opportunities.” The recent funding will even be used to support future mergers and acquisitions, in addition to the development of latest technologies, strengthening Lightricks’ position as a platform to empower stakeholders in the creative economy.
“We are expanding our acquisitions business while developing other services in-house — our overall M&A goal is to accelerate the transition to a creator platform,” Farbman said. “We are planning three to five acquisitions initially, each with a budget of several dozen million dollars. However, we are also looking at larger deals if both parties are sufficiently convinced.”
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