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§ Private Profile · Montréal, QC, Canada
Unsplash is a technology company.
Unsplash offers an online platform providing a vast library of high-resolution, freely usable photographs. It operates as a community-driven ecosystem, where photographers contribute work, making professional visual assets accessible globally. The platform curates diverse, inspiring imagery for various creative and commercial applications, entirely without cost.
Co-founded in 2013 by Mikael Cho, Luke Chesser, and Stephanie Liverani, Unsplash began as a side project from their digital product studio, Crew. The spark came from a marketing need: sharing surplus professional photos on a Tumblr blog. Immense demand revealed a critical gap for accessible, high-quality photography, prompting its development into a dedicated platform.
The platform serves diverse users:designers, developers, marketers, content creators:seeking compelling visuals. Unsplash’s vision fosters global creativity by removing barriers to high-quality visual content. It aims to be an expansive, accessible imagery resource, empowering individuals and organizations worldwide to realize creative aspirations.
Unsplash has raised $10.0M across 1 funding round.
Unsplash has raised $10.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Unsplash has raised $10.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $10.0M Series A in February 2018.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 1, 2018 | $10M Series A | Jason Goldberg | Accomplice VC, ACME Capital, AlleyCorp, Carmenta, Counterview Capital, DST Global, FirstMark Capital, IrishAngels, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Motivate Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Scale Asia Ventures, Stellar Capital, Todd And Rahul's Angel Fund, TWO Bear Capital, BEN Kosinski, Clark Valberg, Mark Bonchek, Rahul Vohra, Roger Dickey, Betaworks, Real Ventures | Announced |
Unsplash has raised $10.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Unsplash's investors include Jason Goldberg, Accomplice VC, ACME Capital, AlleyCorp, Carmenta, Counterview Capital, DST Global, FirstMark Capital, IrishAngels, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Motivate Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners.
Unsplash is a visual content platform providing high-resolution, royalty-free photos and illustrations, created as a marketing experiment that evolved into an independent company. It serves creators, developers, designers, and brands worldwide by solving the problem of accessing beautiful, free stock imagery without restrictive licenses or high costs—users can download and use images for any purpose.[1][2][5] Originally a side project of Crew (a freelancer marketplace), Unsplash spun out in 2016, raised over $31 million in funding, and was acquired by Getty Images, operating as a standalone division while serving 300M+ monthly requests to 7,000+ developers like Trello and InVision.[3][5]
Growth has been explosive: from 10 photos on a Tumblr blog in 2013 to 30 million downloads in two years, with a community of thousands of photographers contributing tagged content for advanced search.[2][5] Its model empowers contributors by connecting them to brands, fostering a sustainable ecosystem around free, high-quality visuals.[2]
Unsplash began in 2013 when Mikael Cho, founder of struggling freelancer marketplace Crew, needed free, high-quality photos for Crew's homepage—stock options were either "crappy" or expensive. He bought a $19 Tumblr theme on his credit card, hired a local photographer for 10 hi-res shots, hosted them on Dropbox (crashing servers from viral demand), and launched the blog as a creative growth hack to drive traffic to Crew.[1][2][5][6]
Cho, an unexpected entrepreneur who moved to Montreal without French fluency and couldn't find work, had prior accelerator experience (Montreal's version of Y Combinator) but no deep technical skills—relying on grit with co-founders like engineer-designer Luke Chesser.[1][4] Early traction exploded: 1 million downloads in the first year, prompting a custom site, community submissions (10 photos every 10 days for approved photographers), and Luke joining full-time (famously posting his new desk photo, viewed 2.7M times).[2][5] By 2016, with Crew sold to Dribbble, Unsplash spun out as its own company, hitting 30M downloads from 15K photos by 8K photographers.[2][5]
Unsplash rides the creator economy and visual-first internet wave, where mobile, social, and design tools demand instant, high-quality imagery—filling a gap left by pricey stock photo giants.[1][2] Timing was perfect post-2013: smartphones boosted visual content needs, while "do-what-you-want" licensing disrupted restrictive models, attracting millions faster than Crew's full-team efforts.[2][6]
It influences the ecosystem by democratizing assets for startups (e.g., via API to Trello/InVision), inspiring giants like Apple, and enabling ethical monetization—contributors gain visibility, brands get custom content loops.[2][5] Post-Getty acquisition, it accelerates as the "world’s most useful visual asset library," blending indie community ethos with enterprise scale amid AI-driven image trends.[5]
Unsplash's pivot from marketing gimmick to visual powerhouse shows how solving adjacent pains builds empires—expect deeper AI enhancements for search/generation, expanded vectors/illustrations, and tighter Getty synergies for pro workflows.[3][5] Trends like visual AI, short-form video, and no-code tools will amplify demand, evolving its influence from free-photo disruptor to comprehensive creative platform. As the original Tumblr experiment proves, utility scales virally; watch for more contributor-brand marketplaces cementing its empire.