A SCOTTISH start-up aims to snap up a five per cent share of a $3 billion international market – by selling on pictures taken by social media users.
Sarah Stenhouse set up Pixey after becoming an avid user of Instagram, where a global community of members posts 80 million images every day.
The amateur snappers share shots of holidays, meals and more.
Stenhouse, who has a background in advertising, aims to help them capitalise on their content by selling the digital rights to their “awesome” images to broadcasters and publishers.
The entrepreneur is pitching Pixey as an alternative to standard stock photography providers, which sell thousands of images by professional photographers every year in a market thought to be worth around $3bn.
Stenhouse, who aims to secure a five per cent share of the market within five years, also claims her agency can stop social media users being ripped off by unscrupulous platforms that utilise amateur images without paying.
She told The National: “A lot of people don’t understand that they own the rights to what they post on Instagram.
“The platform tried to say it owned the rights to sell images in 2012 when it was bought by Facebook, and haemorrhaged users, so had to change the terms quite quickly.
“It’s also quite common for bloggers and other users to find their images have been used without their permission. We pay over the market value.”
Pixey yesterday announced plans to introduce new artificial intelligence technology and bring in five new members of staff as it plans global growth. The move comes after it secured almost £250,000 in seed funding.
However, Stenhouse says the firm will pursue additional investment of up to £2m next year to pursue its five-year goals, which include diverting 10 per cent of traffic away from competitors to its own Pixey.io site.
She said: “This funding is huge for us and will move us on far more quickly. We can now bring in AI technology to effectively source images as well as boosting our profile in the US and Europe. We want to create a community with our photographers and provide a mixture of lifestyle and business content. Moving away from traditional staged stock photography, we supply real photos that are creative and more interesting visually.”
Stenhouse went on: “We are not trying to replace professional photography, but there is a need for the authenticity available through user-generated content.
“If you search for an image of a businesswoman through one of our competitors, you’ll get images of size eight women with blonde hair.
“That’s not what people look like and it perpetuates stereotypes. Businesses spend so much time trying to create a brand that is authentic. They need images that reflect that.”
Fraser Lusty from Equity Gap, which backs Pixey, said: “The stock photography market is estimated to be worth $3bn annually. Sarah has identified many areas where Pixey could grow and the company is already making headway in providing a creative service that benefits broadcasters and publishers.”
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here