Foap, the site that licenses crowdsourced travel images taken by iPhone user, has received an additional $500,000 in funding from Jade Global Investments. David Los, co-founder of Foap, attributes the company’s growth to a first-mover advantage in offering iPhone users an opportunity to monetize photos already stored on their phones.
“We launched at the perfect time. But we also have a very clear revenue model. We add value for both users and photo buyers who get a lot of fresh and natural content to use,” Los told Betakit.com.
The company
launched in June and already has more than 1.4 million images on the site. To date there have been over 150,000 downloads licensed to buyers for a flat $10 each. The fee is split 50/50 with the photographer who uploaded the photo. Foap also announced that later next week it will add a new commission structure. Users who invite friends to join the community will earn 10 percent of any sales the new contributors make in the following year. This fee will be taken out of Foap’s cut rather than the photographer’s.
When the company was launched staff pre-screened and approved every photo uploaded before making it available for sale on the site. With the volume of images submitted this became burdensome. Since then, the company has switched to a community-rating model. Now, before being approved, a photo needs to receive a 2.5 average rating from a minimum of five Foap users.
Mobile photographers are finding more and more ways to license their images. Startups like
Instacanvas provide an opportunity for users to buy and sell their Instagram photos as printed canvass.
Spread, still in private beta, helps users sell their-on-the ground mobile photo coverage to news and media companies. There are also a number of stock photo companies, in addition to startups like
500px that provide photo sales and licensing options.