Shutterfly is reportedly in talks to buy Madrona-backed photo organizer ThisLife for as much as $25 million, according to a report in TechCrunch.
Madrona led a $2.75 million venture round in the San Francisco area startup last June, and at the time we wondered how ThisLife would make headway in a market dominated by plenty of other photo sharing and storage apps. Other investors in the company include Isilon co-founder Sujal Patel and Animoto co-founder Brad Jefferson.
Here’s how Madrona’s Greg Gottesman explained ThisLife at the time of the financing:
“ThisLife isn’t about sharing with thousands of people I barely know on Facebook or publishing to the world on Instagram or the latest app—it’s about being able to easily find and store that incredible picture of my wife holding my oldest son at birth or the video of my daughter finishing third at her school’s long jump and making sure I have those at my fingertips wherever I am and whenever I want. I can then share those memories if I choose to or not.”
The company was founded in 2010, and TechCrunch notes that Shutterfly may be interested in ThisLife’s engineering talent and algorithms which automatically upload photos from various services (Instagram, Flickr, etc.) as well as from one’s phone and desktop computer.
ThisLife offers a free service for up to 1,000 photos, and charges $3.99 per month for every 25,000 photos or 100GB. It also offers a $6.99 per month “Super Box” service for 100GB.
