Great Oaks Venture Capital Invests $750,000 in ImageBrief

NEW YORK, June 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- ImageBrief, the online global marketplace where commercial image buyers license curated photos from professional photographers, closed $750,000 in funding, bringing the company's total funding-to-date to around US $3.2 million. ImageBrief will use the new funds to expand its product team and develop additional offerings in response to the needs of advertising agencies, brands and publishing customers. The investment comes from New York-based Great Oaks Venture Capital, representing ImageBrief's first U.S. funding since opening its New York headquarters in 2013.  Great Oaks has a strong track record funding successful platform and marketplace businesses, including Trulia, Stubhub, Invite Media, JoorAccess, and Olapic.

"At ImageBrief we are experiencing explosive growth having more than doubled our revenues in the last six months alone," says Simon Moss, CEO and co-founder, ImageBrief.  "We appreciate Great Oaks' support of our game-changing, commercial photography marketplace, and the opportunity it presents to recruit additional high-level, New York City-based engineering talent."

ImageBrief is the only online marketplace that enables commercial buyers to license high-quality original images on-demand from pro-photographers around the globe.  Its natural language briefing platform allows image buyers to quickly and cost-effectively secure photos to meet exacting creative needs, no matter how specific. Every professional photographer and contributed photograph is curated by ImageBrief's editors.  ImageBrief's founders have a combined 20-plus-years of experience in the rapidly changing photography, technology and content industry, having worked on both sides of the market as licensee and licensor.

"ImageBrief has taken the traditional photo licensing agency that provides one-on-one curation and licensing services and scaled it to enable thousands of buyers to simultaneously purchase and license original images they could not otherwise purchase online," says Ben Lin, Managing Partner, Great Oaks Venture Capital.  "It's a brilliant model that provides a real win-win for both photographers and image buyers, and this is why we're proud to be adding ImageBrief to our portfolio."

ImageBrief buyer Brendan Donnelly, Senior Art Director from Advertising Agency Leo Burnett explains "What a way to open up some incredible archives. I like the unexpected results which are a refreshing change from scrolling through thousands of the same images in the usual photo libraries."

About ImageBrief

ImageBrief is a privately held company headquartered in New York City, with offices in Australia and the United Kingdom. To date more than 18,000 photographers in 168 countries have signed on to sell original photographs to over 5,000 image buyers at advertising agencies, brands and publishers. ImageBrief allows buyers to secure location-specific, culturally relevant images from almost anywhere in the world within hours and enables effortless licensing agreements. For more information visit:  http://imagebrief.com.   

Media Contact:
Lynn Schwartz
Newsmaker Group for ImageBrief
973.736.7118
Email

SOURCE ImageBrief