PicsArt gets $20 mln in fresh funding for Asia expansion

PanARMENIAN.Net - Photo-editing app PicsArt wants to grow in China and Japan after getting $20 million in fresh funding from DCM Ventures and Siguler Guff & Company, TechCrunch said.

The San Francisco startup’s other backers include Sequoia Capital and Insight Venture Partners. So far, it’s raised $45 million in venture capital funding.

PicsArt hasn’t revealed how many users it has in Asia yet, but Wilson Kriegel, its general manager and chief business development officer, says it has seen “huge organic community and usage growth” across the continent, with China and Japan its top markets there. It’s planning to localize by adding clip art, fonts, and stickers tailored for specific markets and looking for growth partners in different countries.

In Japan, for example, PicsArt has promotions for holidays like the Cherry Blossom Festival and is also working on partnerships with Japanese telecoms, TechCrunch says.

Of course, Asian smartphone users already have a plethora of locally-made photo apps to pick from, ranging from those that specialize in stickers and frames, like Line Camera, to editing apps like Camera360 that provide an alternative to professional tools.

But what PicsArt hopes to set itself apart is with its community of about 75 million monthly active users, who share photos and drawings through the app. It’s added new features to increase engagement, including tools that help people find other users with similar tastes and migrate all their Flickr photos to PicsArt.