According to a study conducted by Zion Market Research, the global Digital Photography market was valued at $105.2 billion in 2020 and these numbers are expected to touch $149.4 billion by 2028 growing at a CAGR of 4.4% during the time. The photography and videography segment in India saw a total revenue of $67.37 million in 2022.
Although the industry is leading with such large numbers, there are still very few choices when it comes to the selection of photographers for certain occasions and events. Usually, good photographers and videographers have to be booked months in advance. If the event is happening at a different location, then the photographer’s travel and stay expenses are to be borne by the client.
Parminder Singh Sahni, Taranbir Singh, Kaushik Singh, and Anshu Sharma noticed these issues and wanted to create a platform that would not only give clients the option to choose their photographers but also give a platform for independent photographers to cover a variety of events.
VsnapU was established in 2017 providing a platform for photography and videography services. The main aim of the founders was to organize the photography market.
The company created a simple process in order to attain its goal- independent photographers can apply via the platform where their work is assessed, and they are onboarded. All photographers and videographers sit through a small training session and are then assigned jobs according to their expertise, location, and availability. It currently covers a range of shoots from pre wedding and wedding shoots to maternity shoots, retail shoots etc.
Users can book a photographer a day prior to the event and are charged an average of Rs 5000 per shoot and it comes along with 25-30 edited pictures. As per special requests, all pictures of the clients will be uploaded in the platform’s cloud storage and will be available for up to six months. For each booking the company takes a 30% commission.
The IIM Bangalore’s NSRCEL incubated company also provides travel packages in which a photographer is a part of the package. Explaining this positioning of the service, Sahni told Entrackr, “We consider photos as a souvenir…so we put a photographer and a salesperson inside a few hotels, and it was a success. We started providing photography as an activity during these trips.”
VsnapU currently works with 1350 photographers and has held 5700 shoots till date. The services are available across 28 countries and 140 cities covering major tourist destinations like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Dubai, Amsterdam, and Zurich. It sees around 95% of its bookings from India and sees 5%-15% globally, depending on the time.
The company has worked with around 30 companies like Zomato and Amazon and worked with over 100 SMEs. It plans on upping this to around 300 SMEs in the next two years.
It raised a total of Rs 2 crore over two rounds of which the latest round was raised in 2022. It involved investors like Niti Ayog and IPV. The Raipur-based startup recorded a revenue of Rs 48 lakhs in FY22 and Rs 42 crore in FY23. It currently has a valuation of Rs 30 crore.
Having seen 2130 shoot bookings in the month of March, the company saw a revenue of Rs 40 lakhs for the month. An average of 2000 bookings are seen every month with a 20% month-on-month growth.
It currently competes against local companies like Canvera and international companies like Sweet Escape and Flytographer. VsnapU plans on expanding the categories provided for shoots and are soon to launch a retail experience.
