There’s no shortage of photo sharing apps out there. But Familiar must be doing something right.
Not only did the Seattle company land $1.3 million, it also announced that more than 20 million photos were displayed through the service during the month of August.
Not familiar with Familiar? Well, we just featured it as our App of the Week on the GeekWire podcast, and I’ve personally become a convert. It was the one app that I made a point of installing on my mom’s iPad when she visited during a recent trip.
The reason is that Familiar makes it dead simple to share photos with groups of people, essentially creating a digital slide show on a friend or family member’s computer, tablet or phone. That resolves the problem of emailing or texting photos or uploading them to a photo sharing site.
The company — led by former iLike employees Marcus Womack, Mike Bohlander, Ray Fortna and Josh Hepfer — has certainly lined up support from some heavy hitters. Investors in the latest round include Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Index Ventures, Acequia Capital and Allen & Company. Twin brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi also remain advisers and investors.
We first wrote about Familiar last fall after it launched the service, and you can see the growth in the accompanying chart.
Redpoint’s Chris Moore had this to say about Familiar:
“Between mobile devices, tablets, laptops and desktop computers, families own billions of screens, most of which sit idle at any given time,” said Moore. “Familiar’s exciting because it’s the only product that turns those idle screens into shareable digital picture frames. It’s simply the easiest way for spread-apart families to collectively experience the images that document their family members’ special moments.”
The company is shooting for the stars, with Womack noting in a blog post that their goal is to top one trillion photos displayed.
“We’re just barely scratching the surface,” he said. “We view all those screens as an opportunity to surprise and delight your loved ones with those cherished moments.”
