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UK startup\u00a0Lobster<\/a> is gearing up to scale its user generated content licensing marketplace, as it closes\u00a0a \u00a31 million Series A. It\u2019s expecting to have closed out the round\u00a0next week, with 85 per cent of the funding committed at this point and only\u00a0its decision on the\u00a0last few\u00a0investors outstanding.<\/p>\n Committed investors include KL10CH (aka \u201cThe Key\u201d), a tech hub co-working space in Moscow, Russia where the startup\u2019s\u00a0dev team is currently based; and\u00a0Nikolay Katorzhnov, the former CEO of Otkritie Capital, who is contributing \u00a3500,000; along with various other unnamed investors making smaller contributions. The remaining 20 per cent of the round will be derived from UK and international angels, and follow-ons from investors in previous rounds.<\/p>\n The London-based startup, which was one of the 2014 battlefield finalists at TechCrunch Disrupt Europe<\/a>, has previously raised around $700,000 in seed funding, including from Wayra UK, UK angels and via a\u00a0crowdfunding route.<\/p>\n It\u2019s built a licensing platform with the\u00a0pitch to its target brands\/ad agency customers being to simplify legal use\u00a0of user generated content in their marketing materials \u2014 by offering a low friction way for them to locate and license the\u00a0more authentic\u00a0visuals being shared on social media platforms\u00a0(vs using tired stock photography).\u00a0The business model is a subscription, with various tiers offered<\/a>, including a month free trial as a taster.<\/p>\n For social media users \u2014 aka Lobster\u2019s\u00a0content contributors \u2014 the\u00a0carrot is the chance to earn a little money on the side from their normal social media\u00a0activity.<\/p>\n Co-founder and CEO Olga Egorsheva says the\u00a0Series A will be going towards expanding boots on the ground in other countries\u00a0to drive marketing and partnership efforts overseas, with new offices planned\u00a0for the US and Asia. It will also be\u00a0focusing resources\u00a0on AI-powered search, which it launched last year, aiming to enhance\u00a0content-ranking and\u00a0show its customers\u00a0more relevant content.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is really the\u00a0next step for us. It\u2019s really that moment where we start scaling\u00a0not only the contributor usage but the customer usage \u2014 and we need to put some money in, some fuel in, to really make it take off in the key markets,\u201d she tells TechCrunch.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have customers in the US, we have a few users in the US and all over the world but we want to market more intensively in the US \u2014 to businesses, to different agencies and media creatives, and through API integrations.\u201d<\/p>\n Lobster also launched its first\u00a0API integration last week, with UK website builder Moonfruit, but is aiming to ramp up on this front too \u2014 targeting\u00a010\u00a0more such\u00a0integrations in Q1-Q2\u00a0\u2014 including\u00a0talking to Adobe in the hopes of being able to plug Lobster into Photoshop in future.<\/p>\n On the content front, it\u00a0currently supports integrations with\u00a0Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, Vk, YouTube, Vimeo, as well as allowing\u00a0users to make\u00a0content available for licensing purposes via cloud storage providers such as\u00a0Dropbox<\/a> and Verizon Cloud.<\/p>\n Users can choose to sync all their content automatically, or select specific photos and videos\u00a0\u2014 or\u00a0a particular folder \u2014 for licensing\u00a0via Lobster. The platform then indexes the metadata to power its search function, pulling in info\u00a0such as hashtags, geolocation, titles, resolutions and so on. Egorsheva says their tech will also\u00a0automatically pull any new\u00a0metadata that\u2019s added to content in future, meaning\u00a0users don\u2019t have to manually\u00a0update any synced content.<\/p>\n Lobster\u2019s AI will also\u00a0auto tag images to improve the quality of content tagging, as well as\u00a0supporting other more powerful search features \u2014 such as the ability to filter content based on a particular color palette (i.e. to match brand livery), or to upload a\u00a0photo to view\u00a0similar images in search results.<\/p>\n The AI can also identify faces, so customers\u00a0can filter for images with or without people, for example, and perform even more specific\u00a0searches such as for different genders, ethnicities, ages and facial\/emotional expressions.<\/p>\n The\u00a0AI-powered search does also\u00a0work for video content though this is one of the areas Lobster is\u00a0looking to enhance\u00a0with the\u00a0new funding\u00a0\u2014 ideally\u00a0by\u00a0partnering with an\u00a0AI-focused startup that has built dedicated video search tech.<\/p>\n \u201cPart of [our current]\u00a0AI is based on Stanford\u2019s technology which our tech team has adjusted to serve the social media field, and the database of social media that we have. The way forward as I see it is more in collaborating with industry players in AI,\u201d says Egorsheva.<\/p>\n Lobster now\u00a0has around 17,000 people actively signed up to license their content\u00a0from\u00a0sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube, creating a pool\u00a0of\u00a0more than five million pieces of content that its\u00a0customers can browse, search\u00a0and license.<\/p>\n The platform is not strictly limited to this opt-in\u00a0pool though as it also (at higher pricing tiers) offers a route for brands to reach out to any public user of the\u00a0various social media platforms\u00a0it supports to ask them to\u00a0license specific content \u2014 expanding its potential reach to some 30BN to 40BN photos and videos.<\/p>\n It\u00a0uses\u00a0standard, non-exclusive agreements for the\u00a0content it licenses, in order to \u2014 she says \u2014 keep things simple, though it has manually agreed a handful of exclusive licenses, and\u00a0Egorsheva adds\u00a0it may look to include an option for\u00a0that in future if demand grows.<\/p>\n Pricing for content is automated by the platform, based on factors such as the source, resolution and whether the image has already been featured somewhere or not. And there are two standard types of licenses: one for content that gets less than one million views\/plays; and an extended (and more expensive) license if\u00a0content garners more eyeballs.<\/p>\n Lobster\u00a0takes a 25 per cent cut of any licensing revenue \u2014 passing 75 per cent to the content creator.\u00a0Payouts to users are done via PayPal.<\/p>\n Another aspect of UGC licensing which the\u00a0platform simplifies is around model release (i.e. getting consent for anyone in the photos to their image being licensed for commercial use). Instead of requiring paper or PDF forms to be signed and collected by the content creator, it\u00a0lets users share a link with their Facebook friends to authorize the usage of their image.<\/p>\n Its overall\u00a0approach \u2014 of being\u00a0an aggregator and enabler, rather than trying to command\u00a0a\u00a0content repository\u00a0of its own \u2014 is its \u201cstrategic advantage\u201d, reckons\u00a0Egorsheva.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of creating another place where you would go and have to upload posts again we\u2019re trying to uncover all that multitude of content that people already create,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt also allows us as a platform to scale infinitely, almost,\u201d she adds. \u201cBecause we don\u2019t store those images \u2014 we pull the data, save the data and our search algorithm works with the data.\u201d<\/p>\n She also claims\u00a0social platforms like the approach as it does not seek to draw their users\u2019 activity elsewhere, and might even help them sustain users\u2019 interest in posting to the social platforms if they are\u00a0getting some financial recompense\u00a0from their activity too.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been offering revenue shares many times but the social networks and the clouds say that the engagement that they get \u2014 or envision to get \u2014 out of it is much more valuable for them.\u201d<\/p>\n At this point Lobster has around 30 customers, with clients including the likes of Hills Pets, Colgate Palmolive and their agency Red Fuse\/WPP. (As you can imagine, Hills Pets was looking for cute photos of dogs.)<\/p>\n And while it\u2019s currently focused on licensing visual content,\u00a0Egorsheva says it could look to move into other areas in future \u2014 such as licensing user-generated music, via a platform like Soundcloud.<\/p>\n How much can content contributors make from licensing their stuff? It sounds as if\u00a0it\u2019s most\u00a0likely to be beer money (at least to social media users in the West), though\u00a0Egorsheva says a user\u00a0whose content style\u00a0attracts the attention of an agency might be able to make a few hundred pounds (vs \u201ca few pounds or tens of pounds\u201d for others).<\/p>\n Still,\u00a0Lobster is intended to be \u2018passive work\u2019, given it\u2019s piggybacking on content a person\u00a0would probably be uploading anyway \u2014 so its real lure\u00a0is\u00a0the chance\u00a0of\u00a0\u2018free money\u2019, at least for anyone actively uploading multimedia content to social media.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a good incentive that, by just connecting your accounts, and continuing to post as you usually do organically, you can earn for an extra cup of coffee or a beer,\u201d argues Egorsheva.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we see in developed countries, in Europe and the US, is that the bigger incentive is getting noticed and getting into some agency\u2019s campaign and supporting the culture of not stealing or screenshotting images \u2014 but legally getting permission,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n \u2018\u201dIt\u2019s very different for users in, for example, India or Eastern Europe, because for them this money naturally is a bigger deal\u2026 So in them we see they are stimulated by earnings as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"lobster\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/01\/lobster_dogs.png?w=680\")
UK startup Lobster is gearing up to scale its user generated content licensing marketplace, as it closes a \u00a31 million Series A. It’s expecting to have closed out the round next week, with 85 per cent of the funding committed at this point and only its decision on the last few investors outstanding. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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