VC-backed EyeEm bolts on sight.io

The announcement of the acquisition comes after EyeEm revealed it has hired sight.io founder Appu Shaji as its new head of research and development, based in Berlin.

EyeEm was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Berlin. It employs around 40 staff.

Previous funding
EyeEm first received funding in August 2011, securing less than £5m in a round led by Wellington and Passion. The deal was sourced directly by Wellington, which invested via its €265m Wellington Partners IV Technology fund.

Passion backed the company through its £37.5m maiden fund. EyeEm's executive chairman invested alongside the two firms.

In July last year, Earlybird led a $6m funding round for the business, which saw Passion and Wellington participate.

Company
Founded in 2012 and based in Switzerland, sight.io developed a photo-ranking engine designed to rank images using "computational aesthetics", which uses algorithms to determine the aesthetics of images.

The company span out from the Image and Visual Representation Group at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. It employed just three staff at the time of EyeEm's acquisition.

People
Florian Meissner is the CEO of EyeEm. Sheetal Joseph and Appu Shaji co-founded sight.io.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Portfolio management
• DACH
• Technology
• Switzerland
• Germany
• Earlybird
• Wellington Partners
• Passion Capital