Picfair
Picfair is an online photography brand[1] and ecommerce platform that helps amateur and professional photographers[2] sell their work through personal online stores and a central marketplace. It was founded in 2013 by former The Guardian and The New York Times journalist Benji Lanyado.[3] It has over 500,000 photographers using the platform.[4]
History[edit]
Benji Lanyado quit his job in journalism in order to learn how to code at the General Assembly coding school in London. His first coding project, a streamlined version of Reddit called The Reddit Edit, attracted the attention of Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian. Lanyado pitched the idea of Picfair to Ohanian in a New York City coffee shop and Ohanian went on to invest in the company as part of Picfair's initial seed investment round, which also included Google Ventures partner Tom Hulme and the founders of VoucherCodes.co.uk.[5]
Having built the site himself and launched it in beta in 2013, Lanyado launched Picfair officially in 2014 as an open-to-all marketplace that allowed photographers to upload their images.[6]
By 2016, Picfair had 3 million images on the platform and had developed a curation algorithm that helped high quality images appear at the top of image searches.[5]
The company attracted a further £1.5m in funding in 2017 from The Claverley Group (owners of the Wolverhampton Express & Star), JustPark CEO Anthony Eskinazi and What3Words founder Chris Sheldrick. At this point Picfair had 25,000 photographers using the platform.[7]
In 2018, Picfair launched personalised stores in parallel to its central marketplace, giving the 35,000 photographers now using the platform their own stand-alone store to sell digital downloads and prints.[3] This led to a rapid increase in signups to the platform, with its user base growing from 100,000 photographers to over 500,000 photographers by the end of 2021.[8]
Partnerships and controversy[edit]
In 2016, following UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd's suggestion that businesses should declare how many non-UK workers they have, Picfair founder Benji Lanyado tweeted that he would refuse to comply, telling the BBC that his opposition to the plan was "not a business decision, but a very simple moral one", going on to state that "[the UK] needs to be seen as an exciting, global hub for exceptional companies and ideas, not an inward-looking island that is happy to scare its foreigners for the sake of political bargaining."[9]
In 2018 Picfair partnered with The Guardian to launch Women Behind the Lens, a competition highlighting the work of female photographers, who are underrepresented in the photographic industries. The winning entries were exhibited at The Guardian's offices in Kings Place.[10]
Picfair also partnered with non-profit The Photography Movement on a month-long exploration into the benefits of photography on mental health, culminating in £20,000 of mental health and photography grants being awarded.[11]
References[edit]
- ^ "Made in Britain: Online photography brand, Picfair.com". Business Matters. 2021-09-02. Retrieved 2024-01-31.
- ^ Turner, Sarah (7 January 2014). "Earn money from your holiday snaps with Picfair". The Mirror. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
- ^ a b O'Hear, Steve (25 September 2018). "Picfair gives every photographer on its marketplace their own store". Techcrunch. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
- ^ "World Mental Health Day: Picfair offers free images, $27K in grants, and interview inspiration". 23 September 2021.
- ^ a b Sawers, Paul (11 August 2016). "How Picfair plans to conquer the stock photo market by keeping photographers happy". VentureBeat. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
- ^ Sawers, Paul (24 July 2013). "Picfair wants to help you monetize your snaps and simplify the photo-buying market". The Next Web. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
- ^ O'Hear, Steve (25 September 2017). "Photo marketplace Picfair raises £1.5M, aims to 'weaponise' photographers". Techcrunch. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
- ^ "Announced! TechRound's Top 23 Scale-Up Companies 2021". 18 August 2021.
- ^ Fottrell, Stefan (5 October 2016). "Businesses react to Conservative plans for listing foreign workers". BBC News. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
- ^ "Picfair's Women Behind the Lens 2018". TheGuardian.com. 30 October 2018.
- ^ "Picfair offers grants for projects that explore the therapeutic benefits of photography on mental health". 14 September 2021.