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Founded in 2003, Denver-based Photobucket has endured two sales — one in 2007 to Fox Interactive Media and another in 2009 to Ontela. Yet through it all, the online photo and video sharing service is still raising money.
According to an SEC filing dated March 4, Photobucket raised $3.6 million in exchange for equity. In addition to Photobucket CEO Tom Munro, the SEC filing lists the following related persons: Photobucket CFO Matt Pullam, Tom Huseby and Bill McAleer of Voyager Capital, Steve Coffey of Covera Ventures, Ren Riley of Oak Investment Partners, Erik Moreno and David Bagshaw.
Covera Ventures, Oak Investment Partners and Voyager Capital are prior investors.
"We are expanding our product offering — our new print offering, which we launched late last year — and we are looking at doing a couple acquisitions in the near future," Photobucket CEO Tom Munro said to Built In Colorado.
In fact, the first acquisition is already complete. Photobucket announced March 12 the acquisition of Lasso Chat and Photo Messaging application. Alex Welch and Chad Podoski, two Lasso founders, joined the Photobucket team as part of the deal, the financial terms of which were not disclosed in the statement. Welch is an original founder of Photobucket.
"We have a large user base, and we're looking at adding different features, different apps and different products to Photobucket," Munro said of the nature of the pending acquisitions. "It will clearly have a mobile focus."
The acquisition and Munro's comments align with a March 6 report from Techcrunch, which suggests that Photobucket will use the newly-raised money to expand its Photobucket Print Shop, which launched in 2014 and allows customers to craft individualized print products.
Furthermore, Techcrunch reported that Photobucket is expected to acquire new entities, particularly those operating in the mobile space.
“We’ve proven that print works, and this investment is to continue to expand on print and group photos on mobile,” Kate Hare, Photobucket’s chief product and marketing officer, said to Techcrunch.
The company has said it has more than 100 million registered members, who upload more than four million images and videos daily.
The SEC file shows that Photobucket is seeking to raise up to $8.1 million in this round, which follows an undisclosed Series E round from Feb. 2013 and a $3.2 million venture round from Aug. 2014.
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