Toronto’s 500px has made its first acquisition.
The Canadian startup purchased recommendation engine Algo Anywhere. The deal was
worth $2 million in cash and stock, according to an inside source cited in TechCrunch.
Algo was a two-man startup. Adam Gravitis will become 500px’s chief software
architect while Zach Aysan will become chief data scientist. They will raise
500px’s headcount to 16.
“One of our goals that we’re constantly working towards with our platform is
to make it more user friendly, more customized and more engaging,” said Oleg
Gutsol, CEO of 500px. “When we first met the Algo team we immediately recognized
that their capabilities and technology would be a perfect fit for our needs to
make social photography more interactive and engaging. Combining their big data
analysis and recommendation engine, curation and visual content we’re looking
forward to offering our users a greatly enhanced experience.”
“We couldn’t be happier to be joining the 500px team and implementing our
technology for such a forward thinking company,” said Adam Gravitis, CEO of Algo
Anywhere. “From the beginning there was a natural gravitation for us to the
innovative work that 500px is doing in the photography space and how we could
further enhance their efforts. Given the infrastructure already in place and our
technology capabilities, I believe we can take the 500px experience to the next
level.”
500px is a photo community powered by creative people worldwide that lets you
discover, share, buy and sell inspiring photographs.
The first version of 500px came to light in the early days of digital
photography. At that time, everything was slightly different — the Internet was
slower, 3.2 megapixel cameras were the latest buzz, digital photographers were
just getting acquainted with their tools, and 500 pixels was a good size for
photos displayed on CRT monitors. Over the years, the 500px platform went
through a number of revisions and changes, growing together with technology and
photographers, and keeping focus on the highest quality photos
