Looksery

Last updated
Looksery
Type Subsidiary
Industry
Founded2013;10 years ago (2013)
Founders
  • Victor Shaburov
  • Yurii Monastyrshin
Headquarters
San Francisco
,
United States
Key people
  • Victor Shaburov President
  • Yurii Monastyrshin COO
  • Alex Grytsiuk CTO
  • Lidiya Bogdanovych Head of Design
Julie Krasnienko Marketing and Business Development Director
Number of employees
45 (2016)
Parent Snap Inc. (2015–present)
Website www.looksery.com

Looksery is an American software and photography company founded in 2013 by Victor Shaburov and Yurii Monastyrshin. The company is based in San Francisco and owned by Snap Inc. The company developed the Looksery application that does facial modification of photos in real time on mobile platforms. [1] [2]

Contents

The company has offices in the United States and Ukraine. [3]

History

Victor Shaburov founded Looksery company in 2013 in San Francisco. Shaburov was sponsoring a programming contest in Ukraine, which Yurii Monastyrshin won twice in succession. Victor offered him to become a co-founder of the startup. In 2014, offices were established in Odesa, Ukraine and Sochi, Russia. [4] [5] Later, the company launched a Kickstarter campaign in order to raise funds, [6] [7] and exceeded their fundraising goal. [8]

In September 2015, Looksery was acquired by Snap Inc. for $150 million, marking the biggest startup acquisition in Ukraine’s history. [9] [10] Snapchat used the Looksery technology to launch a new feature, Lenses. [4]

Application

Before Snapchat's acquisition, Looksery was available as a stand-alone application for iOS and Android. [11] Looksery’s mobile application enabled users to simulate their appearance for a photo or video chat in real-time. [12] Additionally, users could share photos and videos through popular social networks and messengers. [13] When Snapchat launched its product, Lenses, Looksery was withdrawn as a stand-alone product. [10] [13] [14] In June 2014 Looksery launched on crowdfunding site Kickstarter an app that makes you look better on video chat. [15]

Reception

Looksery garnered a lot of media attention. [16] [17] Vogue selected Looksery as one of the ten Best Apps of 2014 and wrote that "it’s truly addictive and instantly fills you with the childlike energy and creativity of playing make-believe". [18] TechCrunch called it "a clever application that lets you change your facial features..." [19] and Inc. wrote that "[it] is an example of technology that may make it easier for camera-shy folks to sit through live video calls or take pictures in the future." [20]

Awards

In 2014, Looksery won the Best Innovative Startup Award at the SVOD annual conference in Silicon Valley. [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salesforce</span> American software company

Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, and application development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meebo</span> Instant messaging client

Meebo was an instant messaging and social networking service provider. It was founded in September 2005 by Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg, and Elaine Wherry, and was based in Mountain View, California. Initially the company offered a web-based instant messenger service, extending its offer in more general online chat and even social networking directions. In June 2012, Google acquired Meebo to merge the company's staff with the Google+ developers team.

Tinychat is an online chat website that allows users to communicate via instant messaging, voice chat, and video chat. It offers instant opportunities for people to meet and the ability for users to create their own virtual chat room on any topic or category. Tinychat is a web-based platform that works on HTML5 compatible browsers or standalone apps for Android or iOS. The chat rooms can contain a rolling maximum of 12 video and audio feeds. Tinychat, including all of its services, is owned by PeerStream.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Messenger (software)</span> American instant messaging app

Messenger is a proprietary instant messaging app and platform developed by Meta Platforms. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the company revamped its messaging service in 2010, released standalone iOS and Android apps in 2011, and released standalone Facebook Portal hardware for Messenger calling in 2018. In April 2015, Facebook launched a dedicated website interface, Messenger.com, and separated the messaging functionality from the main Facebook app, allowing users to use the web interface or download one of the standalone apps. In April 2020, Facebook released a Messenger desktop app for Windows and macOS.

Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before they become inaccessible to their recipients. The app has evolved from originally focusing on person-to-person photo sharing to presently featuring users' "Stories" of 24 hours of chronological content, along with "Discover", letting brands show ad-supported short-form content. It also allows users to store photos in a password-protected area called "my eyes only". It has also reportedly incorporated limited use of end-to-end encryption, with plans to broaden its use in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epiphany Eyewear</span>

Epiphany Eyewear are smartglasses developed by Vergence Labs. The glasses record video stored within the glasses' hardware for live-stream upload to a computer or social media. The glasses use smartphone technology. The head mounted display is a mobile computer and a high-definition camera. The glasses take photographic images, record or stream video to a smartphone or computer tablet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scan (company)</span>

Scan is a mobile app development company headquartered in Provo, Utah, United States. The company was founded in January 2011 by Garrett Gee together with his college friends Ben Turley and Kirk Ouimet. The company, owned and operated by Scan, Inc, was acquired by Snapchat in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Facetune</span> Mobile photo editing application

Facetune is a photo editing application used to edit, enhance, and retouch photos on a user's iOS or Android device created by Lightricks. The app is often used for portrait and selfie editing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hike Messenger</span> Instant messaging app

Hike Messenger, also called Hike Sticker Chat, was an Indian freeware, cross-platform instant messaging (IM), Voice over IP (VoIP) application which was launched on 12 December, 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal and is now owned by Hike Private Limited. Hike worked offline through SMS and had multi-platform support. The app registration used a standard one time password (OTP) based authentication process. Hike is estimated at a value of $1.4 billion, with more than 100 million registered users and 350 employees.

Solaborate/ˈsōˈlabəˌrāte/ is a communication and collaboration platform for professionals and consumers. It allows them to do video calls, share documents, screencast and screenshare, remotely monitor their home or office. Solaborate is a combination of the words "social" and "collaboration". Solaborate has both software and hardware in the form of the HELLO Messenger and HELLO Communication Device.

The following is a timeline of the history of the photo messaging software Snapchat.

Onavo was an Israeli mobile web analytics company owned by Meta Platforms. The company primarily performed its activities via consumer mobile apps, including the virtual private network (VPN) service Onavo Protect, which analysed web traffic sent through the VPN to provide statistics on the usage of other apps.

Picsart is a Miami, Florida-based technology company that develops the Picsart suite of online photo and video editing applications, with a social creative community. The platform allows users to take and edit pictures and videos, draw with layers, and share the images on Picsart and other social networks. It is one of the world's most popular apps, with reportedly more than 1 billion downloads across 180 countries.

Snap Inc. is an American camera and social media company, founded on September 16, 2011, by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown based in Santa Monica, California. The company developed and maintains technological products and services, namely Snapchat, Spectacles, and Bitmoji. The company was named Snapchat Inc. at its inception, but it was rebranded Snap Inc. on September 24, 2016, in order to include the Spectacles product under the company name.

Facebook Stories are short user-generated photo or video collections that can be uploaded to the user's Facebook. Facebook Stories were created on March 28, 2017. They are considered to be a second news feed for the social media website. It is focused around Facebook's in-app camera which allows users to use fun filters and Snapchat-like lenses to their content as well as add visual geolocation tags to their photos and videos. The content is able to be posted publicly on the Facebook app for only 24 hours or can be sent as a direct message to a Facebook friend.

Houseparty was a social networking service that enabled group video chatting through mobile and desktop apps. Users received a notification when friends are online and available to group video chat. On average, users spent more than 60 minutes per conversation on the app in group or one-on-one chats. It was launched by Life on Air, Inc. in 2016 and was available on iOS, Android mobile devices, macOS and Google Chrome. Sima Sistani is the company's chief executive officer and co-founder. Epic Games announced the decision to discontinue Houseparty on September 9th, 2021 and removed it from the app stores on the same day. It continued to function for users who had already downloaded it until October 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eyegroove</span>

Eyegroove was a social media service headquartered in San Francisco for creating short music videos with augmented reality effects founded by Scott Snibbe and Graham McDermott. The company was established in 2013 and released the first version of its app on iOS that year. Through the app, users could create thirty second creative and lip-syncing music videos and choose musical tracks to accompany them, use different speed options and add time-based augmented reality filters and effects. The app's social media features included an Instagram-like feed, hashtags for creative memes, user tagging, and comment threads.

References

  1. ↑ "This Year Halloween Has Its Own Selfie App". Huffington Post. October 31, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Generation Selfie And How Entrepreneurs Are Cashing In". Archived from the original on October 31, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Startup Looksery aims to beautify your selfie videos". CNET.
  4. 1 2 "Deal of the Year: Snapchat buys Ukrainian startup Looksery for USD 150 mln". UA Today. September 16, 2015.
  5. ↑ Mooney, Paula (July 8, 2014). "Create game characters who look like you with Looksery". Venture Beat.
  6. ↑ Perez, Sarah (June 4, 2014). "Looksery Launches On Kickstarter With An App That Makes You Look Better (Or Just Funnier) On Video Chat". TechCrunch.
  7. ↑ "The next big Kickstarter success story?: 'Video selfie' app Looksery passes its $30K funding goal with 23 days still to go".
  8. ↑ Sheremeta, Bozhena (September 16, 2015). "Snapchat buys Looksery in reported $150 million deal, making it biggest acquisition of Ukraine tech player". Kyiv Post.
  9. ↑ "Snapchat buys Looksery in reported $150 million deal, making it biggest acquisition of Ukraine tech player". www.kyivpost.com. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  10. 1 2 "Snapchat Acquires Looksery To Power Its Animated Lenses".
  11. ↑ "Video beautification app Looksery reaches Android too".
  12. ↑ "Startup Looksery aims to beautify your selfie videos".
  13. 1 2 Shontell, Alyson (September 15, 2015). "Snapchat buys Looksery, a 2-year-old startup that lets you Photoshop your face while you video chat". Business Insider.
  14. ↑ "Create game characters who look like you with Looksery".
  15. ↑ Perez, Sarah. "Looksery Launches On Kickstarter With An App That Makes You Look Better (Or Just Funnier) On Video Chat". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-10-26.
  16. ↑ Shankland, Stephen (February 24, 2015). "Video beautification app Looksery reaches Android too". CNET.
  17. ↑ Hendricks, Drew (October 30, 2014). "Generation Selfie And How Entrepreneurs Are Cashing In". Forbes. Archived from the original on October 31, 2014.
  18. ↑ "From Face-Morphing to Speed-Reading, the 10 Best Apps of 2014".
  19. ↑ "Looksery Launches On Kickstarter With An App That Makes You Look Better (Or Just Funnier) On Video Chat".
  20. ↑ Boitnott, John (July 30, 2014). "Looksery Wants You to Accept That Live Video Call". Inc.
  21. ↑ J. Roethig, Benjamin (June 20, 2014). "Looksery Effects App Wins Startup Award at SVOD'14 Conference". GeekBeat.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.