Facetune developer Lightricks, which operates more than a dozen subscription-based photo- and video-editing apps across iOS and Android, now has $ 130 million in new funding to further grow its business. The company’s newly announced Series D round initially included $100 million and $30 million in secondary funding and is now valued at $1.8 billion. To date, Lightricks has raised $335 million.
The new round was co-led by New York-based VC firm Insight Partners and Hanaco Venture Capital and included new investors Migdal Insurance, Altshuler Shaham, and Shavit Capital. Current investors include Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Claltech, Harrell Insurance & Finance, and Greycroft. The company’s last-ditch fund was $135 million before the epidemic, which made the company a unicorn.
Located in Jerusalem, Lightricks is best known for its photo-editing app Facetune, which puts retouching tools like Photoshop in the hands of consumers. The app quickly gained traction as online influencers tweaked their Instagram photos to make them look more polished, perfect, and spotless. This growth was not without controversy, although some argued that how image-editing apps like Facetune took airbrushing too far, contributing to body image problems that, now, internal research on Facebook suggests, could have a negative impact on adolescents’ mental health. But Facetune was just beginning to become a mobile editing empire for Lightricks, at a time when everyone is trying their best to watch online and create engaging content. Over the years, the company has launched the more powerful Facetune 2 with more creativity and mobile photo apps that haven’t focused on selfies.
It has expanded its product lineup beyond the crowd of manufacturers to bring a suite of tools for online marketers and small businesses. And last year, Lightricks responded directly to online video with a new selfie retouching tool called Festoon Video originally Facetune for the TikTok era.
The company has benefited from the Covid-19 lockdown, in addition, many people have participated online and the manufacturers, as a group, have become more well-established as a way to reach consumers of the brand. During the extreme lockdown, the company grew its apps across the United States by 90%, meanwhile, downloads of its popular Videoleap video editing app have increased by 70% since the onset of the epidemic, with the amount of tick receiving increased.
