Israel’s Lightricks, the Company Behind Facetune, Secures $60 Million to Change How the World Creates Content

Hi-Tech Company Founded in 2013 and Famous for Its Content Creation Apps, with Nearly 100 Million Downloads Worldwide, Including Global Hit Facetune

Jerusalem hi-tech company, Lightricks, known for its content creation mobile apps, has announced a $60 million funding round led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from Claltech. Part of the funding will be used to acquire shares from founders, employees, and investors in a secondary transaction. Lightricks is growing profitably and will use the funding to build more products and to double in size, recruiting a total of 300 employees for its Jerusalem and London offices.

Lightricks is set on bringing creativity to everyone. The company designs and develops fun & powerful content creation tools, including global hit portrait editing brand Facetune and the Enlight Creativity Suite. Together, Lightricks apps have about 100 million downloads worldwide and nearly 1 million subscribers and have won prestigious awards including Apple’s 2015 App of the Year, Apple’s Best of 2017 and the 2017 Apple Design Award. Lightricks’ most recent app, Enlight Pixaloop, released in mid-September, became an instant hit with over 6 million users and nearly 200,000 paying subscribers in just two months.

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This is Lightricks’ second investment round, following its initial $10 million funding round from Viola Ventures. Since the first investment in 2015, Lightricks has expanded its team from 30 employees to 150. Lightricks’ revenue is growing 270% year over year and the company is profitable. In 2016, the company released Facetune2 with a revamped business model, moving from one-time paid apps to a more lucrative subscription model.

Lightricks is projecting revenue to exceed $100 million in 2019.

“The mobile market is growing, and more and more people are turning to mobile devices over desktop software to create their content. Whether you’re an Instagrammer editing a photo, an artist designing a poster, or a small business owner creating a video, you can use one of our tools,” explains Dr. Zeev Farbman, Lightricks co-founder and CEO. “This field of creativity lends itself well to the exciting, and in many ways, new business model of consumer mobile subscription. Insight brings expertise with several investments they’ve made in the consumer subscription space, and we are excited to partner with a world class firm to build a world class company.”

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“The need to create, edit, and engage with content on a mobile device is greater than ever before. Lightricks has met this growing customer need through its innovative apps,” said Harley Miller, Principal at Insight Venture Partners, who led the deal and will join the company’s board of directors. “Lightricks has been experiencing tremendous growth, and we’re thrilled to partner with the team to further strengthen their global leadership in the mobile content creation category.”

Insight was represented by Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and GKH Law Offices. Lightricks was represented by Pearl Cohen Letzer & Baratz.

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