contentSutra news watch | Photo Sharing

Infibeam Acquires Photo Printing Portal Picsquare

2008-11-18T06:00:16Z

Picsquare CEO Manish Agrawal has confirmed the deal with Ahmedabad-based Infibeam to VCCircle.

Bangalore based photo printing portal Picsqure has been sold to Indian online retail firm Infibeam. Picsquare CEO Manish Agrawal has confirmed the deal to VCCircle. He, however, refused to divulge the financial details nor commented whether it was a cash or stock deal.

VCCircle was the first to report about the deal betweem Infibeam and Picsquare on Monday. The Bangalore-based Picsquare will now be a subsidiary of Infibeam and will continue to operate as a stand alone website. Also Agrawal refused to comment if the current investors are exiting the company. Agrawal and his co-founder Kartik Jain will continue their present roles in Picsquare.

Agrawal said that the deal has nothing to do with the slowdown and Picsquare continues to grow. “We thought this is a good opportunity to work togetther and make something big in this space,” said Agrawal. Picsquare now plans to add more features to the website, expand it’s product selection and team. There are synergies between Picsquare and Infibeam in terms of knowledge sharing and customers.

Previous story posted on Monday (17/11/08): The economic slowdown seems to have started having an impact on India’s web 2.0 startups. Bangalore-based online photo printing company Picsquare is believed to be in advanced stages of talks to sell to online retail firm Infibeam. When contacted by VCCircle, Manish Agrawal, co-founder and CEO of Picsquare, neither confirmed nor denied the development to VCCircle. “It will be too early to comment on this development,” he later called to say.

Picsquare, besides offering services like printing photos, also personalised mugs, t-shirts, mousepads, calendars etc. Formed in 2005, it has a total user base of 2 lakh and a team of 11 people.

In 2006, Picsquare raised $75,000 from three angel investors - Sanjay Swami, CEO of mCheck, Shripati Acharya, founder of Snapfish and Vijay Iyer, Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Silver Creek Systems Inc. Then, in August this year, it also roped in a strategic partner, Bhola Digital Lab, an offline photo printing company. The company is currently in the growth stage and is expanding its operations.

Ahmedabad-based Infibeam sells products via internet, which includes new and used automobiles, mobiles and accessories, books, cameras, watches, gifts, toys and home appliances. It’s founder and CEO is Vishal Mehta.

This is not the first M&A in this space. Earlier this year Hewlett & Packard-owned online photo printing site Snapfish.com acquired an Indian online photo printing website MeraSnap.com.

There are a lot of players in online photo printing space, and quite a few have raised funding. One of the oldest photo portals is ZoomIn, which is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. Printo is another one to receive funding from Sequoia Capital and Seed Fund. Banglore-based Canvera raised Series A funding in May this year from Footprint Ventures, DFJ and others. There are also other players like eYaadien and Photomasti.

Then personalised merchandising firms such as Myntra and eYantra also overlap this field as they also personalised merchandises.

This story has been provided by our content partner VCCircle

HP's SnapFish Acquires MeraSnap In India; "It's A Customer Acquisition" Says SnapFish MD

2008-05-22T06:42:00Z

HP-owned SnapFish has acquired MeraSnap.com, one among many is the nascent online photo finishing space. MeraSnap was one of the unfunded players in this segment, which includes KPCP & Sherpalo Ventures funded ZoomIn, Sequoia Capital and Seed Fund funded Printo, Picsquare (funding from 3 Angel Investors), iTasveer with a deal with Windows Vista, and a bunch of others like eYaadein, RangeelaPhotos, PhotoMasti, 123shots etc. At present, the MeraSnap site redirects users to SnapFish.in. The value of the deal has not been disclosed. I spoke to Bala Parthasarthy, one of the founders of SnapFish and Managing Director, AsiaPac and Latin America for the HP owned company:

Why acquire Merasnap? MeraSnap was among the earliest players in India, and they have acquired 100,000 customers. This fits in very well with what we’re looking for. We’re currently in the process of migration of users to SnapFish, if they choose to do so. This is essentially a customer acquisition.

1 lakh customers…is that since launch, the number of users in the last 5-6 months, or repeat usage? That’s the number of customers since launch. MeraSnap is one of the larger players in the market in terms of repeat usage. I dont have the exact repeat usage data.

How has Snapfish done in India since launch? And what’s the current state of the market? SnapFish has been getting a phenomenal response in India - and 200,000 customers since launch. I think what’s worked for us it the value proposition of Rs. 2.95 for prints. We do a wide variety of prints and gifts. In terms of the state of the market - digital cameras are pretty new, but what’s important for us is not the market today, but that the digital camera market is expected to grow at 20-22 percent CAGR through 2011. And there are mobile phone cameras as well. We’re betting on the fact that the Internet and Broadband growth in the next 3-5 years would be significant. So we’re investing in the market to stay in the market. Competition is not significant and not very large. I’m excited and pleasantly surprised that we could get 200,000 in 6 months.

If you were able to acquire 200,000 customers in just six months, and it’s still a nascent market - why acquire MeraSnap for just 100,000 customers (since inception)? Why not grow organically? We’ve done a number of these deals - MeraSnap customer value is very similar to ours. We do a rigorous ROI analysis, and we bother to acquire if base is significant enough and the effort of transitioning users is easy enough. Other players’ user base were smaller.

More on retail ops in the extended text

The founders haven’t joined Snapfish? No. It’s a customer acquisition, not a company acquisition.

What about an offline presence for SnapFish or MeraSnap? A retail distribution network? Snapfish doesn’t offer any offline presence in India - neither does MeraSnap. In other markets, we print to a retail location. We’ll do that in India at some point in time.

So why not look at someone with a vendor network to complement SnapFish? SnapFish is not in the offline business worldwide. We’re present in more than 20 countries, where we partner with retailers - around 12000 retail outlets, but its always a partnership. Partnering someone with a vendor network will make sense when we can have a large enough presence with a nationwide footprint in India.

Are you are you planning to leverage the existing but fragmented “photo studio/lab” network that exists, or go with full fledged stores or kiosks? HP has a fairly broad chain of stores, and we’ll have a kiosk to print photos there - where one can order online and print there. we don’t disclose .

Do you have in-house printing capabilities or are you working with vendors? We’re working with vendors with HP equipment, but we don’t disclose vendor deals.

Canvera Raises Series A Funding From Footprint, DFJ And Mumbai Angels

2008-05-05T08:13:00Z

Canvera, a Bangalore-based digital photo startup has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a round led by Footprint Ventures, reports VC Circle. The Series A round also included Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mumbai Angels and two angel investors from the UK. With a desktop application called Canvera Pro, Canvera is targeting professional digital photographers, and provides services customized wedding albums, photographs, calendars, and photo prints, with a turnaround time of 24-48 hours. They appear to be eying the wedding services market. The company is founded by two IIT Mumbai graduates - Dhiraj Kacker (CEO) and Peeyush Rai. Kacker has worked with consumer focused digital photo sharing and printing co Shutterfly.

Others digital photo sharing and printing companies in this space include Printo (funding from Sequoia Capital, Seed Fund), Picsquare (funding from 3 Angel Investors), iTasveer (tie-up with Microsoft), and MeraSnap.com. Hewlett Packard has also launched its own service - Snapfish - in India. Update: forgot to mention KPCB and Sherpalo ventures funded site Zoomin (pointed out by Varun Singh in the comments).

The IPL Media Guidelines

2008-04-07T06:38:00Z

Word is expected today regarding changes to the guidelines issued by the Indian Premier League regarding media coverage; both Prem Panicker and an online media publication were kind enough send us the guidelines issued by the IPL last week: you may view them here.

A few additional clauses regarding online media, apart from the details that we have covered earlier: It appears that photos can only be used if they appear as still images, and cannot be used to support a so-called on-line match-tracking report, audio or text based commentary service. Also, no online use or publication or syndication of still photographic images is allowed without the express prior written consent of IPL. And “Only representatives of licensed/authorised media licensees (licensed by IPL) may make sound and/or image recordings of any Match.” What if a spectator has a camera phone?

Clearly the guidelines seek to restrict online coverage of the IPL…either that, or generate a media controversy before the IPL launches. I would have thought that the IPL would have sought to push for as much online coverage as possible, given that the league is still in its infancy. Updates expected today, so watch this space.

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IPL And Media Publications At Loggerheads Over Restrictive New Media Guidelines

2008-04-05T05:11:00Z

The Indian Premier League is certainly throwing its weight around, and pushing its luck - the media guidelines issued regarding the much hyped and controversial Twenty20 Cricket tournament, reportedly include clauses related to Internet reports and photographs that have media organizations up in arms. So what are the restrictions?

—Website Accredition: The IPL has refused to grant accredition to websites for the event. I wonder if that includes Cricinfo, which primarily depends on the Internet and mobile, but has a magazine as well. Almost all publications and TV channels have websites with Cricket coverage…will their media accredition be revoked?
—Photographs: For most media publications, the problem is around photographs: The IPL is claiming sole copyright for the images, and no match images are allowed to be made available on mobile either. Photographers are required to first upload photos on the official IPL website within 24 hours. Apparently: “The IPL shall be entitled to use and reproduce, free of charge, worldwide and without limit in any time and all photographs/images captured by the accredited party at any group…”

So what’s being done? The Sports Journalists Federation of India and the Editors Guild of India have written to BCCI President Sharad Pawar expressing “alarm and concern”. They’ve called the claims ridiculous. The Agence France-Press (AFP) has said they can’t cover the tournament. Reuters (NSDQ: RTRSY) and the Associated Press are considering a boycott.

This isn’t the first time a Cricket authority has been at loggerheads with the media - in 2006, Cricket Australia had banned online video coverage of the Ashes series between Australia and England, also threating to revoke press accredition for journalists.

The IPL has has a prize money of Rs 12 Crores (around $3 million), and sponsorship is around the Rs. 500 crore ($125 million) mark. Here’s the match schedule.

Update: Some fire-fighting expected from the BCCI - ToI reports that the IPL representatives will discuss the issue with media representatives today. Given that there’s a politician at the helm of the BCCI, I wonder if a “rollback” is in the offing. However, a compromise solution will still mean that media guidelines will be more stringent than normal.

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HP Owned Snapfish Launches In India

2007-10-10T08:32:00Z

Hewlett Packard owned Snapfish, a free online photo sharing which allows users to order prints, has launched in India, reports ET. Snapfish also provides storage space to members who order at least a print a year. Prints cost Rs. 2.95 onwards, and the site also offers prints on mouse pads, t-shirts, mugs etc. HP is in the process of tying up with channel partners for prints. Snapfish was founded by Bala Parthasarathy Varadarajan Krishnan, GM for consumer sales, imaging & printing group for HP India says that they’re targeting (only) 3000 photo outlets in four years. HP intends to put up kiosks in high traffic areas for printing digital photographs (payment via credit cards), as well as photo centres.

Snapfish already has a tie-up with Microsoft for online printing services Windows Live Spaces community, so I wonder if that will be extended to India.

There are a few other online photo sharing and printing sites in India, including - Picsquare (funding from 3 Angel Investors), iTasveer (tie-up with Microsoft), Printo (funding from Seedfund) and MeraSnap.com. The big business appears to be in sending photos to India, rather than within India, where, apart from the aforementioned players, there are others like eYaadein, RangeelaPhotos, Photomasti and 123shots.

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