VSCO Raises $40 Million From Accel Partners
We’ve all heard of VSCO in the mobile photography community, if nothing else for the #VSCO or #VSCOCam on Instagram. Yesterday the company announced a $40 million investment from Accel Partners, a venture firm, renown for its early investment in Facebook.
VSCO; which says that it has a community “tens of millions of people” large — is more than just another app maker. VSCO also sells editing software that emulates the effects of classic analog film photography, which the company says has allowed it to be “cash-flow positive since Day 1,” when the company was founded in 2011.
The company employs 43 people in Oakland, Calif., who help run the other elements of Vsco (whose name rhymes with “disco”), including a community platform where photographers can share their work with one another, and a digital journal that features the artists using VSCO software and tools, among other things.
“We are working to create a new digital age of creativity,” said Greg Lutze, who founded VSCO along with Mr. Flory. “We built something we wanted to use ourselves.”
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photographer, photography journalist, editor and curator and the founder and editorial director of TheAppWhisperer.com, an independent international photography publication established in 2009.Her journalism, criticism and commentary have appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Vogue Italia, LensCulture, Popular Photography, Android Magazine, NikonPro, DPReview, Which Digital Camera and Which Camera. She has lectured internationally on photography and mobile art, served as a juror for international photography awards, and exhibited her own photographic work across the UK, Europe, South Korea and the United States.Alongside her editorial work, Joanne's photographic and postgraduate research explores death, grief, memory, representation and social inequality through contemporary photography, participatory practice and visual research methods, with the longer-term aim of developing this work through doctoral research.Through TheAppWhisperer, she continues to publish independent photography journalism spanning contemporary photographic practice, mobile imaging, photographic apps, computational photography and emerging imaging technologies.Joanne is available for editorial commissions, photography projects, judging, curatorial work, speaking engagements, consultancy and selected collaborations.
One Comment
Laurence Zankowski
Joanne,
VSCO recently selected one of my images to be part of their curated online galley. This investment means they are going big. I like how they do their app/filters/grid.
Be well
Laurence