Santa Barbara, CA, June 07, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
Snapwire, a stock photography startup and, a leading platform for crowdsourcing licensable photos for brand’s marketing needs, announces today it has launched a new "testing the waters" fund-raising campaign under a new mini-IPO rules on the equity crowdfunding platform StartEngine. To date, Snapwire has received more than $13 million of investment interest from approximately 2,300 people since launching the campaign. The company makes the announcement along side of the launch of their new Adobe Lightroom Preset marketplace; Snapwire FX. Presets allow photographers to apply pre-adjusted settings in Lightroom to enhance photos. Presets are valuable because they accelerate photographers workflow and help them produce higher quality, more visually aesthetic shots.
“Regulation A enables companies to offer shares to anyone, but particularly for us, all of our loyal users. In exchange for that loyalty Snapwire is giving away one of our new Lightroom presets from our new preset marketplace to anyone who reserves shares on our campaign page,” stated Snapwire’s CEO, Chad Newell.
The new securities law, which went into effect on June 19, 2015, under Title IV of the U.S. JOBS Act, enables private companies to raise up to $50 million from anyone. Historically, start-up companies were only permitted to raise funds from accredited investors, however, the new rule affords non-accredited investors to purchase shares in private companies. Snapwire is choosing to measure interest from potential investors through a ‘Test The Waters” campaign to determine if the company should continue to file with the Securities Exchange Commission which would get the needed approval to sell shares of the company. The company’s profile and campaign details can be seen on their campaign profile.
Few companies have attempted to raise capital under the new rules of Regulation A. Snapwire was one of the first ones to launch a ‘Test The Waters’ campaign back in August of 2015 when the company quickly raised over $10M of indications of interest in 7 days on a platform called SeedInvest at a time when it had 150,000 registered users. Since then, the company’s photographer community has grown to over 275,000 users. With this growth, the company decided to continue its equity crowdfunding campaign this year on StartEngine, one of the few companies who has successfully seen the entire Reg A process through from measuring interest to actually selling shares. Their first company, Elio Motors, has subsequently listed on the OTC.
Since launching the new campaign, Snapwire has generated $2,962,800 of indications of interest to invest from 713 backers who have reserved shares with an average investment of $4,155 per reservation. By gauging investor interest upfront through these campaigns, the company is able to make a better-informed decision prior to conducting the full Regulation A mini-IPO.
If the company obtains approval from the SEC to sell shares, it plans to use the proceeds primarily for growth, scale and additional product improvements. Specifically, the company plans to improve its mobile application, which encourages photographers to upload their best photos in response to brand driven photo assignments and challenges, while building a personal marketplace of stock photos. Since the launch in June 2014, the library has grown to over 2M photos. To date, Snapwire has worked with over 10,000 brands and businesses to help find on-brand photography.
The launch of Snapwire FX affords the company to provide additional value to its photographer community. Competitively priced at $55 USD, each preset pack provides photographers pre-configured settings for Lightroom and have been specifically engineered to help photographers sell photos to photo buyers who seek an authentic look and feel for the photos in their marketing efforts.
Additionally, the company recently launched an improvement that allows buyers to find photographers that are local to specific areas and regions. These localized Requests make it possible for buyers to discover specific photographers in their area to shoot a wide variety of Requests that range from restaurants to weddings.
“Recent product improvements afford massive brands, like Google, to get photos from us anywhere in the world, including specific places, that are on brand and match creative direction requirements to specification.”, said Newell.
Snapwire has worked closely with Google’s Zagat Directory so that they may easily discover proven photographers in close proximity to their restaurant listings in major metropolitan and suburban areas. Invited photographers submit photos directly from the company’s mobile apps and websites.
Snapwire expects to be one of the earliest of many future companies leveraging the historic changes in securities laws, considering the current fundraising environment in Silicon Valley.
“As the current early stage fundraising environment continues to weaken, and more and more CEO’s compete for series A financing, the company is convinced that a mini IPO under Regulation A is the best option for a successful fundraise. Our own community continues to support our original mission which is to enable people with a passion for photography to thrive doing what they love,” Newell stated.
About Snapwire Media, Inc.
Launched in 2014, Snapwire is a platform that connects visionary photographers with businesses, brands and creatives around the world. The platform gives photo buyers the ability to post localized and creative themed photo requests and photographers either compete or get invited to shoot assignments. Additionally, they earn points, level up and receive up to 70% when their photo sells. The company is located in Santa Barbara, CA.
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Press Contact
Alexis Lim
alexis@snapwi.re
(805) 845-7572
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