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Picture perfect: Photo company flush with VC money eyes U.S. real estate market

The French startup offers Insta-worthy photo and video services to real estate companies

(Credit: Pixabay)
(Credit: Pixabay)

Photography startup Meero is coming to New York City armed with $60 million in venture funding.

The company raised $15 million in a Series A round in September 2017 and raised an additional $45 million in a Series B eight months later. Backers include European funds such as Global Founders Capital, Aglaé Ventures, Alven, White Star Capital and Idinvest Partners.

Meero runs a global online marketplace through which clients can book photographers and arrange shoots to produce a set of images, videos or virtual tours of their properties. The company also handles post-production by using artificial intelligence to automate image editing–a process which it claims allows Meero to turn around its photo products within 24 hours. The France-based startup’s big-ticket clients include Airbnb and UberEats.

Prices for photography ranges from 75€ to 145€, while starting prices for virtual tours and videos are 149€ and 169€ respectively. Meero takes a cut from each transaction and claims to have over 40,000 clients placing orders at a rate of one request per 30 seconds worldwide.

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The company was founded in 2016 by co-founder and CEO Thomas Rebaud to allow real estate companies and brands to compete with Instagram.

“We wanted to make the web beautiful,” Rebaud told TechCrunch. “We realized that we are all on Instagram and that photos are beautiful. But then, you go on a marketplace and photos aren’t great.”

A company representative said Meero’s new office in New York will open this September and will serve as a launch pad to grow its U.S. business.

As The Real Deal recently reported, the number of real estate tech firms with venture funding has ballooned since 2012 in the U.S. with VC investment in the sector reaching a gigantic $5.7 billion last year.

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Commercial Real EstateMarketingTechnologyVenture Capital