Snapwire

Snapwire is a platform that allows users to take photos and videos in response to a request for brands, publishers, small businesses, and creatives who seek images that fulfil certain requirements.[1] Buyers post a creative image brief (called a Request) and photographers respond by submitting their photos through the Snapwire website or mobile app.[2] Winning photographers are awarded and paid.[3] Aside from Requests, Snapwire regularly runs creative Challenges concerning popular image needs. Challenges are curated by Snapwire and are open to the public.[4]

Snapwire
Type of businessPrivate
Headquarters
Santa Barbara, California
,
U.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)
  • Chad Newell
  • Sky Gilbar
  • Ryan Dewane
IndustryPhotography & Video
ProductsProduction Platform, Global Creative Marketplace, Digital images, full copyright buyout & Royalty-free images & videos
Employees20+
URLsnapwire.co
LaunchedMarch 6, 2014 (2014-03-06)
Current statusSold

Snapwire has a searchable library of photos called the Marketplace, which consists of hand-selected images with varying price points. In July 2014, the number of photos in Marketplace had reached 150,000;[5] in October 2014 this number exceeded 500,000 images. As of July 2020, the company has over 5,000,000 images. Every photo on the Marketplace offers a royalty-free license that businesses may purchase to use commercially.

After Ryan Dewane joined Snapwire, the company shifted its focus to become a visual content marketplace that connected vetted Creators with businesses and brands who needed to own the copyright to bespoke content serving customers like Airbnb, Doordash, Chownow, Carlsberg and Amazon, where brands need photos and videos of their products to help tell their story in marketing channels. The company built marketplace technology that automatically suggests to anyone the best match creator in their area or by specialty and role. The platform technology affords businesses the ability to scale their content needs.

In May 2022, Snapwire was acquired by StudioNow.

History

In 2012, Chad Newell (Chief Executive Officer) and Sky Gilbar co-founded Snapwire Media Inc. In 2017, Ryan Dewane (Chief Operation Officer) became co-founder.

Chad Newell started working in the industry as a researcher at a stock photo library named Image Bank that was later acquired by Getty Images. In 2001, he co-founded Media Bakery – a premium stock photography agency with 10 million images aggregated from 170 sources that have all licensing models (macro stock, mid stock, and micro stock) and is one of the largest independent stock photo agencies in North America.

Snapwire opened to the public in March 2014.[6] In July 2014 Snapwire launched 2.0 version, which allowed photographers to create personal portfolios and sell images from these.[7] With its 2.0 version the company made a move towards becoming a photo sharing website. At the same time, Snapwire announced a partnership with gram30 – a Japanese-based startup studio focusing on incubating and developing new products and services.[5] In October 2014, Snapwire collaborated with Adobe to bring selected features of Adobe Photoshop CC and Lightroom to the Snapwire iOS app.[8] The application was revealed at Adobe MAX 2014 show in Los Angeles. On October 1, 2014, the company opened its first international office in Tokyo.[9] In May of 2022, Snapwire was sold to Nashville based StudioNow, Inc.[10]

Funding

About three months after the company's formal launch in March 2014, it had secured a $1.4 million seed round,[11] with investor Sadato Tanaka. Other notable users include Alan Meckler, Allen Morgan, Tom Glocer, Safa Rashtchy, Scott Jarus, Chaotic Investments, Roger Fishman, Dave Morgan, Spencer Huang, and Mark Kingdon.[5] In August 2015, Snapwire completed a "testing the waters" campaign on equity crowdfunding platform SeedInvest to gauge interest from their users in investing in the company.[12] In December 2016 the company successfully raised proceeds under the Title 3 of the Jumpstart Our Business Jobs Act on Startengine, which yielded net proceeds of approximately $168,000. In April 2017, the company successfully closed another round of equity crowdfunding of approximately $198,000 on Wefunder. In 2018, the company secured another $900K in seed funding from Santa Barbara Angel Alliance, Entrada Ventures and other notable angel investors. In 2019, the company closed a Series A financing led by Defy Partners.

See also

References
  1. Shu, Les (June 24, 2014). "How a small stock photo startup plans to revolutionize the agency model". Digital Trends.
  2. Jolly, Jennifer (July 27, 2014). "TECH NOW: Get paid for stuff you already do". USA Today.
  3. Nagy, Evie (July 9, 2014). "How Brands Are Using Your Best Instagram Shots For More Authentic Marketing". Fast Company.
  4. Heath, Alex (August 7, 2014). "Make money off your Instagram photos? There's an app for that". Cult of Mac.
  5. "Snapwire Introduces Open Marketplace for Mobile Photographers and Expands Into Asia". Marketwired. July 9, 2014.
  6. Carson, Biz (April 18, 2014). "Turn your Instagrams into a business: Snapwire, a new mobile stock photo website, opens to public". Gigaom.
  7. Parker, Jason (July 15, 2014). "Make money with your photos". CNET.
  8. Cade, DL (October 1, 2014). "Snapwire Collaborates with Adobe to Feature New Creative SDK". PetaPixel.
  9. "Snapwire Collaborates with Adobe to Feature New Creative SDK and Expands to Japan". PR Web. October 2, 2014.
  10. Dorbian, Iris (June 1, 2022). "StudioNow Acquires Snapwire". Venture Capital Journal. Archived from the original on April 25, 2023. Retrieved June 30, 2023 – via GlobeNewswire.
  11. Chen, Hanqing (July 9, 2014). "Photo marketplace Snapwire opens up to more photographers". Venture Beat.
  12. Shu, Les (August 4, 2015). "Stock photo startup Snapwire explores mini-IPO filing under new regulations". Digital Trends.
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