Olapic has today closed a $5 million Series A round led by Fung Capital USA and Longworth Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors including Great Oaks and Scout Ventures.
Olapic lets brands leverage our current obsession with photo-sharing by taking user-generated photos and putting them within brand partners’ ecommerce experience.
When we last heard from Olapic, the ecommerce-based photo-sharing platform was focused on tapping publisher brands, such as Conde Nast and NY Daily News, as well as brands like Pepsi, as the main customers for its service.
Now, however, Olapic believes that ecommerce brands are the key to success, as user-generated photos can almost act as a visual review of various products.
Here’s how it works:
Olapic partners with retailers and then scours the web for various related hashtags and keywords. Then, that brand can insert photos sourced from this hunt directly into the ecommerce experience, either on a product page or within a gallery. Brands are in complete control of the photos used on the website, and can see user submissions in real time. Plus, it comes with tools to stay connected to the users submitting photos and, according to co-founder Pau Sabria, ultimately increases e-commerce conversions.
Not only can brands use these photos creatively within the ecommerce pages, but they can track the ROI there with an analytics dashboard.
“Customer-inspired e-commerce is a market we are pioneering,” said Sabria. “We will use the funding to invest a significant effort into creating awareness for this type of marketing and ecommerce experience.”
Olapic currently has around 20 live brands on the site, including but not limited to Lululemon, Nasty Gal, Steve Madden, Threadless, New Balance, Jet Blue, and Coach.
The latest round of funding will go toward scaling the service, as well as hiring out more sales staff and investing in marketing for the first time.
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