Last week we premiered our new web series, The Pitch. This week you get to meet the first startup, Olapic, and watch them pitch Lerer Ventures.
The process of finding and choosing startups took several months and none of the companies in this series were chosen by Lerer Ventures. But New York can be a small town. In this first session, you’ll see what happens when a startup and a VC discover they have more in common than they thought.
Olapic was founded by three Spaniards who met in New York while attending Columbia Business School. With shared backgrounds in engineering and sales, they decided to leverage their school’s incubator program to found a company and tap into the booming tech scene in New York. For Olapic, the timing coincided with the recent explosion in photo-sharing apps, helping them to catch the attention of brands and publishers worldwide. The company is a platform that helps brands such as publishers crowdsource photo collections, generating content and increasing user engagement.
As the founders noted, there are a number of photo-focused startups in New York run by founders of Latin descent. Along with Olapic, companies like Pictuu, Pixable and Pictour.us are playing in the same photo space. “Fotolog was really huge for us growing up,” said Olapic founder Pau Sabria, when asked what he made of the trend. Funny how the history of Silicon Alley comes full circle.
Click through here to learn more about Lerer Ventures.
Want to know more about all the companies involved? Check out our founder’s guide here.
And if you need to catch up, here’s the premier episode of The Pitch.
