Loopc.am founder Tor Rauden Källstigen demonstrates a loop
Gif-sharing service Loopc.am has revealed it closed a financing round earlier this year led by London-based Passion Capital but which also included some of Berlin’s best-known startup names. Zoe Adamovicz of Xyologic, Alex Ljung of SoundCloud, Christophe Maire of, amongst other things, Textr and Amen’s Felix Peterson are all involved.
Loopc.am – which we featured on Silicon Allee back in January – also announced in today’s press release that in addition to revising its web platform to include Polaroid-like embeddable widgets for blogs, the API is now available in private beta (for access head to the website).
The startup was founded by Tor Rauden Källstigen in 2011 and enables users to express themselves and share moments in short GIF-based video clips called loops. The platform’s userbase has expanded rapidly in recent months, with Tor telling Silicon Allee earlier this year that users had surprised him by creating communities, with loops making up conversations and memes.
And now some celebrities are jumping on the bandwagon, including musical producer Jermaine Dupri who declared his love for fast food through a loop last weekend.
User growth has been most pronounced in Sweden, Germany, the US and the UK. Tor said: “I’m thrilled to launch our new web platform to make the most of our Loopc.am app and the fantastic loops created by our users. I am also extremely proud to have the backing of our investors to support our mission of defining the future of fun visual communications.”
Stefan Glaenzer, partner at Passion Capital, said: “Tor has had a great vision for the LOL-graph over the past several years. Loopc.am is such a simple, yet addictive experience for self-expression – and easily sharing that across communities and to others who will appreciate the sense of humor – creating the LOL-graph. We can’t wait to see how the strong community – of celebrity users and non-celebs alike – continues to grow.”