Some of our most precious memories exist online-only, in the form of photographs scattered across various and disparate social networks. And when the time comes to share those memories with grandchildren… Well, good luck with that.
It’s a problem that PastBook, a startup currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, as part of the RockStart.Accelerator program, wants to tackle head-on with a service that makes it easy to consolidate and preserve those photographic memories both online and off-line.
Today, the company is announcing a $250k seed financing round from Noro Venture Capital, Vidoze BV and a group of undisclosed angel investors. The funding comes in the form of a convertible note and follows an earlier investment of €15k (plus office space and mentoring) from RockStart as part of PastBook being accepted into its program.
Launching first for Instagram (with Facebook integration up next), PastBook enables users to turn their Instagram photos into an online book which can be browsed via the Web, downloaded as a PDF or turned into a professionally printed book. Comments and likes on photos on Instagram can also be included “in bid to make users’ memories more vivid”, says the company. The app also ties into a user’s social graph, making it easy to create and gift a PastBook to their friends. The aim, eventually, is to support all the main photo sharing social networks.
The cloud element is reminiscent of things like the latest pivot from Jolicloud or services such as memolane, and there are a plethora of on-demand printing offerings that will turn your Instagram or Facebook photos into a physical book.
PastBook says it differs from each in that it’s not trying to create “another timeline” in the cloud and its app goes far beyond just printing. Whether or not that’s enough of a differentiator, we’ll have to wait and see. The startup’s backers, announced today, obviously think so. Meanwhile, its founders, Stefano Cutello and Giuseppe Prioriello, say that they have put their houses up for sale to make a go of the startup, freeing them to relocate where required, and have both left successful careers behind: Cutello was at eBay and Priorello worked for one of the leading printing companies in Italy.