Picsart could be the next Instagram

Picsart’s mobile photo editing application is set to receive $ 15 million in a new round of funding, bringing the company's total valuation to $ 250 million, Fortune said . A previous application investor, Sequoia will also participate in this tour, but is unlikely to be a leading investor.

Picsart flew unnoticed under the nose of many, and calmly collected about 250 million downloads of its applications for iOS and Android. According to the company, the audience of applications totals 60 million active users every month. Earlier this year, the company received $ 10 million from Sequoia Capital.

At the very beginning, the company was content with an Android app, but two years later an iOS app appeared. In November 2013, the application jumped the bar of 90 million downloads and 30 million monthly active users. In December of the same year, the application launched on Windows Phone.

The company, based in Armenia, Hovhannes Avoyan and Artavazd Mehrabyan, the functionality of their applications goes beyond Instagram filters, allowing users to jointly edit images and most of all applications resemble a mix of Instagram and Adobe Photoshop.

Regarding earnings, the differences between a startup and Instagram appeared from the very beginning. In addition to native advertising support, Picsart allows users to make in-app purchases of additional fonts, filters, and other tools.

The company recently hired a former Zynga manager, Wilson Kriegel, who excelled in DrawSomething as his CRO (Chief Revenue Officer, Director of Revenue).

So the question is, can Picsart shoot like Instagram?

Instagram has created a community sharing photos via mobile devices. Picsart is trying to step forward by providing co-creation opportunities. Currently, the market is oversaturated with photo-sharing applications, and many startups have tried to replicate Instagram success, but have not been able to get close to it.

In favor of Piscart, the creators of the application calmly gathered an interested user base with an impressive 300 million downloads. Fortune also writes that in the near future the company plans to introduce video editing functions.