Hojbjerg, Denmark-based JumpStory, a marketing and tech platform that provides only high-performing images, announced on Monday that it has raised $1M (approximately €956K) in a fresh round of funding “to conquer the world of stock photos”.
With this round, the company has now raised a total of $3M in funding to date. It has also witnessed a rapid-growth journey, growing 230 per cent in 2021.
Investors in this round
The round saw participation from a number of influential entrepreneurs and business people. The investors include Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson, who is also the co-founder of Basecamp, and Joergen Bardenfleth, former Scandinavian CEO at Microsoft.
Heinemeier Hansson says, “JumpStory is a truly novel take on the world of stock photography. One that sells authentic curation of the hundreds of millions of images available online, rather than competing with the existing giants on their turf. There’s real traction, happy customers, and a bright future here!.”
Basecamp investors include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Thus Heinemeier Hansson will bring not just his knowledge but also a highly remarkable network to JumpStory.
Co-founder of JumpStory, Jonathan Low, says, “We’re super proud and excited that David has decided to jump on board. We want to change the world of stock photos and make it much more simple, transparent and authentic. The stock photo industry is turning over $5B a year, but at the same time, we feel so much is wrong with the industry, as it is. For example, all the cheesy stock images; the complex licensing terms and the high prices.”
Access to millions of authentic images
Founded in 2018 by Danish serial entrepreneurs Jonathan Low and Anders Thiim, JumpStory specialises in original and high-performing photographs that stand out from competitors such as Getty Images and Shutterstock.
JumpStory is for those who hate stock photos, but can’t afford or don’t have time to hire a professional photographer every time. The platform curates authentic images created by passionate amateurs – images of real people in real-life situations.
“We use machine learning (AI) to look for this kind of authenticity. So, where some tech companies want to use AI to generate fake images, we’re going in the completely opposite direction. We want to contribute to a more authentic and real world. Not a fake or AI-generated one,” says the company.
JumpStory also claims to have simplified both pricing and licensing models to offer a Netflix-style subscription, with one simple licence and unlimited downloads for a fixed monthly price. It offers a simple subscription model with prices as low as $29/month for unlimited downloads of millions of curated and authentic stock photos, videos, icons, and AI-tools.
Both founders have launched tech companies in the past and have taken JumpStory from a concept to a startup with customers in 150 countries in a short period of time.
Co-founder Anders Thiim says, “Currently the US, Canada, Australia and the UK are our biggest markets. However, from the beginning, Jonathan and I decided that we wanted to grow the company from our HQ in Denmark. We believe that local ecosystems are hugely important because as entrepreneurs we want to give back to the communities where we grew out of. We have no plans to move to Silicon Valley.”
Currently, the company employs people from eight different nations and counts customers such as APSIS, SEMrush, and Computerworld, among others, from all over the world.
