– FRANCE, Paris – Meero, the artificial intelligence-enabled online platform for professional photographers which revolutionizes the professional photography industry by enabling customers to access personalized photo and video offers worldwide while facilitating the everyday work of photographers, today announced that the company has raised $230m in one of the largest funding rounds for a French tech company this year.
Eurazeo Growth contributed US$56 million to the US$230 million funding round, alongside Prime Ventures, Avenir Growth, and the company’s historical investors – Global Founders Capital, Aglaé Ventures, Alven, White Star Capital, and Idinvest Partners’ Venture team.
Thomas Rebaud, Meero’s co-founder and CEO, said the company will use the funds to expand its “product, technology and geographical footprint”. He estimates that Meero is operating in a $100bn industry and wants to grab a 5 percent market share in the next five years.
Meero was set up three years ago and links 40,000 professional photographers in more than 100 countries with commercial photo shoots in areas including real estate, e-commerce and marriage shoots. The company has developed AI technology for photo editing, and has over 31,000 clients globally, including Sotheby’s auction house and Barnes, the estate agency.
“We are trying to solve a big mission, which is empowering photographers to do what they love,” said Thomas Rebaud. “We need to help them on many things — that’s why we raised such a large amount. We want to do everything we can to make photographers more efficient in their day-to-day work and open up new revenue streams for them.”
Meero also offers photographers pre-production, post-production marketing, and customer relationship management tools, and plans to double its team from 600 people to 1,200 at the end of this year, and expand to 2,000 by the end of 2020.
Created in 2016, Meero currently has 31,000 customers and 600 employees of 49 different nationalities, working from five offices in Paris, New York, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Bangalore. From providing revenues and market research to invoicing, debt recovery, post-production, and delivery, Meero takes care of all the laborious, time-consuming tasks of professional photographers. The company supports their everyday activities, with accounting, CRM and marketing tools, etc.
Meero also solves a major problem in the world of photography: photo editing. Its cutting-edge publishing, content enrichment, and automated editing technology reduces post-production time to just a few seconds. This fundraising will enable Meero to propose its solutions to new customers and in new geographies, to accelerate the development of dedicated services for photographer communities and to perfect its automated publishing and content enrichment technologies.
Benoist Grossmann, Managing Partner of Idinvest and Eurazeo Growth, said: “This transaction strengthens Eurazeo’s position in Meero. Idinvest’s Venture team has been supporting the company since 2018 and is delighted to reinvest alongside the Eurazeo Growth team as part of this new funding round. We strongly believe in Meero growth potential, which has rocketed in recent months.”
Yann du Rusquec, Managing Director of Eurazeo Growth, added: “In only a few months, Meero has secured global leadership of a major market and is establishing its boundaries, by providing significant value to its customers and professional photographers. We’re delighted to be involved in this exceptional project.”
About Meero
Founded in 2016, Meero is revolutionizing the world of photography by providing photographers a platform for their passion. From finding jobs to invoicing to post-production to delivery, Meero is taking the work out of making a living as a photographer.
To accomplish this, Meero has developed countless innovations and tools to deliver businesses — and soon, consumers — customized photo and video offerings around the world. Meero provides end-to-end shoot management, guarantees unbeatable prices and premium quality, and all with delivery times of less than 24 hours.
For more, visit Meero
About Eurazeo
Eurazeo is a leading global investment company, with a diversified portfolio of €17 billion in assets under management, including nearly €11 billion from third parties, invested in over 300 companies. With its considerable private equity, venture capital, real estate, private debt and fund of funds expertise, Eurazeo accompanies companies of all sizes, supporting their development through the commitment of its 235 professionals and by offering deep sector expertise, a gateway to global markets, and a responsible and stable foothold for transformational growth. Its solid institutional and family shareholder base, robust financial structure free of structural debt, and flexible investment horizon enable Eurazeo to support its companies over the long term.
Eurazeo has offices in Paris, New York, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Seoul, London, Luxembourg, Frankfurt and Madrid, and is listed on Euronext Paris. (EPA: EURA)
For more, visit www.eurazeo.com
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