Photo Community & Marketplace 500px Raises $13 Million in Series B Funding

July 21, 2015

Toronto’s 500px announced today that it has closed a $13 million Series B round led by strategic investor Visual China Group, a leading provider of digital visual content with market cap over US$3 billion.

All major investors from 500px’s 2011 Series A round including Andreessen Horowitz, Harrison Metal, and ff Venture Capital participated in the round, bringing the total investment raised to date to $23 million.

“Over 1 trillion photographs are taken every year and there is tremendous opportunity for 500px to take the helm in curating to surface the best of them,” said Andy Yang, CEO of 500px.

“Our growth is reflective of this opportunity and the huge value our community sees in our platform. This funding round will enable us to continue to support our rapidly growing community of photographers, be they professional or enthusiasts, with products for discovering, showcasing, and selling amazing content. This round will also open the door to the Greater China market by working with the market leader Visual China Group.”

Within the past year, 500px has grown its base of community members to more than six million creatives who have uploaded more than 55 million images.

“Our community is very active. The images people share on 500px represent their best work, and our vibrant community provides feedback by favoriting a photo, sharing it with their social networks, or even offering a critique,” added Yang.

The 500px marketplace has also expanded rapidly, making millions of the images on 500px available for licensing to agencies, designers, corporate marketers and creative campaign managers.

500px will use the new funding to support this rapid growth and expand the product, marketing, and operational team. Product development will be accelerated with an emphasis on expanding the marketplace to support the substantial interest from the creative and design industries to license 500px images.

Long term, the funding will help grow the existing global user base by fueling international expansion, in particular to Greater China and the Asia Pacific region.