Company:PicsArt
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Type | Private company |
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Industry | Internet |
Founded | 2011 |
Founder | Hovhannes Avoyan Artavazd Mehrabyan Mikayel Vardanyan |
Headquarters | |
Key people | Hovhannes Avoyan (CEO) Artavazd Mehrabyan (CTO) Craig Foster (CFO) Mikayel Vardanyan (Chief Product Officer) |
Products | Photo and video editing suite |
Number of employees | 600 (July 2020)[1] |
Website | picsart |
PicsArt is a San Francisco, California and Yerevan, Armenia-based technology company that develops the PicsArt suite of online photo and video editing applications, with a social creative community. The platform allows users to take and edit pictures and videos, draw with layers, and share the images on PicsArt's and other social networks.
The company was founded in 2011.[2]
History
PicsArt was founded in November 2011 by Armenian entrepreneur Hovhannes Avoyan, and Armenian programmers Artavazd Mehrabyan and Mikayel Vardanyan.[3] Its founders developed the first Picsart application as a stand-alone tool to help people alter a photo image on their phone, and additional capabilities were added over time.[4] The first PicsArt app launched in November 2011 on Android devices.[5]
In January 2013, PicsArt for iOS was released for the iPhone.[5] In May, it was released for the iPad.[6] In November, PicsArt had reached 90 million installs and had nearly 25 million monthly active users.[citation needed] In late 2013, PicsArt photo editor became available for Windows Phone.[7]
In January 2014, PicsArt became available on devices supporting Windows 8.[8]
By April 2015, the company reportedly had seen 250 million downloads for its iOS and Android apps, and had 60 million monthly active users.[9]
In 2016 PicsArt reached 75 million monthly active users.[10]
In 2017, PicsArt launched Remix Chat, a messaging system where users can share images directly or in groups and edit them collectively with friends.[11] The company also launched a feature to let its user community create and share custom stickers for free. PicsArt also announced that it reached 90 million monthly active users.[12] In July, Russian supermodel and philanthropist Natalia Vodianova joined PicsArt to help increase social engagement and activism within the PicsArt photo community.[13] In October, the company reached 100 million monthly active users and began announcing partnerships with major consumer brands and celebrities.[14]
In March 2019, PicsArt reached 130 million monthly active users.[15] Also in 2019, the company was ranked by app analytics company Sensor Tower as the #4 top grossing social photo and video editing app, after Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.[16]
In January 2020, the company launched an artificial intelligence lab in conjunction with the American University of Armenia.[17] The facility employed faculty and students to conduct research in machine learning and computer vision. In July, PicsArt acquired motion-based video effects company D'efekt, its first acquisition.[18] Also in July, the company reported over 1 billion app downloads to date.[19]
Products
PicsArt develops four mobile apps, and a set of web browser tools for editing videos and photos. The app and website tools support social networking activities.
The four apps include:
- PicsArt Photo & Video Editor - a photo and video editing app with tools to add filters and various effects, with social network integration. The app is free to use and offers in-app purchases of stickers and other graphic elements.[20]
- PicsArt Animator - an animation app allowing the creation of cartoon videos, GIFS and other animation.[21]
- PicsArt Color - a drawing and painting app[22]
- PicsArt GIF & Sticker Maker - an animated GIF and sticker generator[12]
The apps are available on iOS, Android, and Windows mobile devices.[23]
PicsArt's web browser tools for PCs have the same features as the PicsArt Photo & Video app, but are designed for web browsers on PCs running Windows 8.1 or higher.[24]
Built-in social networking features with the apps and website tools allow users to comment, favorite, and follow others using the tools.[20]
Operations
PicsArt is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and operates a second office in Yerevan, Armenia.[25] The company has additional offices in Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo and Los Angeles.[25] As of March 2019, the company reported that 70 percent of its 360 employees worked in engineering and product development, and half of those employees are female.[14]
Funding
As of September 2020, the company has received $65 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital, Insight Venture Partners, and others.[26][27][28][9][29]
References
- ↑ "PicsArt To Acquire Video Effects Startup D'efekt". 2020-07-22. https://news.crunchbase.com/news/picsart-to-acquire-video-effects-startup-defekt/. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ "Photo editing app PicsArt will use $20M funding round for Asia expansion". 2016-04-20. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2016/04/photo-editing-apppicsart-will-use-20m-funding.html. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
- ↑ "Picsart Gold – Super Advanced Photo Editor App". 2020-04-24. https://www.newsgaze.com/picsart-gold/. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
- ↑ "Finding The Art In Building A Business". 2013-04-18. https://www.fastcompany.com/3008477/finding-art-building-business/. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Photo app PicsArt expands its focus from Android to iOS". 2012-12-17. https://www.fiercewireless.com/developer/photo-app-picsart-expands-its-focus-from-android-to-ios. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
- ↑ "AppAdvice App of the Week for January 7 2013" (in en-US). 2013-01-07. https://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/01/appadvice-app-of-the-week-for-january-7-2013. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
- ↑ "PicsArt photo editor jumps from Phone to Windows 8.1 and wins our affection" (in en-US). 2014-06-25. https://www.windowscentral.com/picsart-photo-editor-windows-81-hidden-gems. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
- ↑ "PicsArt expands its Windows Phone 8 availability". 2014-01-07. https://www.windowscentral.com/picsart-expands-its-windows-phone-8-availability. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Picsart, a mobile photo-editing app, to raise $15 million". http://fortune.com/2015/04/13/picsart-raises-15-million.
- ↑ "San Francisco-based photo editing app PicsArt will use $20M funding round for Asia expansion - Silicon Valley Business Journal". http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2016/04/photo-editing-apppicsart-will-use-20m-funding.html.
- ↑ "Edit. Share. Repeat. PicsArt adds new chat feature to encourage remixing photos". 2017-02-21. http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/picsart-adds-remix-chat.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "PicsArt's custom stickers (and export option) could make basic effects look boring". 2017-03-21. http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/picsart-custom-stickers.
- ↑ "Natalia Vodianova Joins PicsArt As The Head Of Aspiration". https://www.musttechnews.com/natalia-vodianova-picsart-head-aspiration/.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Creative-focused app PicsArt hits 100M MAUs". 2017-10-31. https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/31/creative-focused-app-picsart-hits-100m-maus-attracting-brands-tired-of-trolls/. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ "PicsArt hits 130 million MAUs as Chinese flock to its photo-editing app" (in en-US). http://social.techcrunch.com/2019/03/20/picsart-china/.
- ↑ "Creative-focused app PicsArt hits 100M MAUs". 2019-08-02. https://sensortower.com/blog/top-grossing-photo-and-video-apps-worldwide-q2-2019. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ "AUA and PicsArt Announce the Launch of the AI Lab" (in en-US). 2020-01-09. https://mirrorspectator.com/2020/01/09/aua-and-picsart-announce-the-launch-of-the-ai-lab/. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
- ↑ "PicsArt To Acquire Video Effects Startup D'efekt" (in en-US). 2020-07-26. https://atlantabusinessjournal.com/picsart-to-acquire-video-effects-startup-defekt/. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ "What does acquiring 1 billion users teach you about mobile user retention?" (in en-US). 2020-08-01. https://johnkoetsier.com/what-does-acquiring-1-billion-users-teach-you-about-mobile-user-retention/. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 "PicsArt (for iPhone) Review". 2016-10-05. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/picsart-for-iphone. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ "Here are the top 9 Google Play apps of 2017 for enterprise use". 2016-10-05. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/here-are-the-top-9-google-play-apps-of-2017-for-enterprise-use/. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ "PicsArt Color Paint app update brings improved video export, brush previews and support for more languages". 2017-03-07. https://nerdschalk.com/picsart-color-paint-app-update-brings-improved-video-export-brush-previews-and-support-for-more-languages/. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ Graham, Jefferson. "Scribble on your pics with versatile PicsArt photo editor". USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/talkingtech/2014/03/01/talking-tech-picsart-studio-app-review/5826921/. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ Saleem, Hammad (2001-11-30). "PicsArt is an excellent and popular photo editing app for Windows 8.1". WinBeta. http://www.winbeta.org/news/picsart-excellent-photo-editing-app-windows-81. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 "Armenian businesses record success on international level". 2020-07-27. https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1023175.html. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ↑ "Picsart, A Photo Editing App With 200M Downloads, Lands $10M From Sequoia". https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/05/picsart-10-million.
- ↑ "PicsArt Raises $15M To Build A Community Around Photo Editing". https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/04/picsart-raises-15m-to-build-a-community-around-photo-editing.
- ↑ "Photo app PicsArt gets $20M to grow its user base in Asia". https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/20/picsart-asia.
- ↑ "Picsart". https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/picsart.