AAA Nokia, Google brighten Luminate

Nokia, Google brighten Luminate

Luminate, a US-based company specialising in adding interactivity features to digital images, secured $10.7m in series C financing on Thursday in a round led by Nokia Growth Partners, the corporate venturing fund belonging to mobile phone maker Nokia.

The round also saw participation from existing investors in Luminate, which include internet company Google’s corporate venturing unit, Google Ventures, as well as venture capital firms CMEA Capital, August Capital and Shasta Ventures.

Founded in 2008, Luminate operates a platform for image applications that uses crowdsourcing technology to make images interactive. Websites using Luminate’s platform can provide links through any image to ecommerce, information or other media.

The latest funding follows a $12m series B round in July 2010 and a $5.75m series A round in March 2009, both secured prior to Luminate’s name change from Pixazza in July last year. The total equity raised by Luminate stands at about $28.5m. 

Paul Asel, managing partner of Nokia Growth Partners, said: "As smartphone cameras become more powerful and ubiquitous, images are becoming more social and interactive. We look forward to working with Luminate as they create new and exciting applications for online images that have the potential to change the way we engage with images in the future."

The capital injection came as Luminate launched an image app store featuring 11 applications including apps that links websites including Wikipedia, Twitter and film streaming site Netflix.

 

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