Snappr raises $2M to grow its on-demand photography service

Snappr, the on-demand photography service that was part of YC’s Winter ’17 batch, has closed $2M in seed funding. Investors include Airtree Ventures (the largest VC fund in Australia, where Snappr was founded), Lars Rasmussen, co-founder of Google Maps and Justin Waldron, co-founder of Zynga.

As a refresher, Snappr is a marketplace for people looking to book a photographer for a photo shoot. Besides being able to accommodate last minute bookings, Snappr’s main benefit is its affordability.

A 30-minute shoot starts at $59 and a two-hour shoot is only $149. These low price points mean that people are booking photographers for occasions they would have never previously thought to hire a professional – like a birthday party or holiday gathering.

In today’s Instagram-first world, good photos are more important than ever. And like it or not, for some people a big part of spending money on fancy meals and experiences is the chance to share it with their social networks. So if you’re that person, why not spend an extra $59 on a Snappr photographer to make sure the photos are top notch?

Snappr was founded in Australia, but in the U.S is still only available in San Francisco, where the company moved after finishing YC. But the startup plans to use this new funding to fuel its U.S expansion – starting with San Diego, Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles in the next 60 days, and the East Coast soon after.

So far the most popular booking (they’ve had around 5,000 so far) is a two or three hour shoot, with the most popular events being either internal company events and family birthday parties. They’ve also had demand for profile picture photoshoots for LinkedIn or dating apps like Bumble and Tinder.