PicsArt Among Five Hottest 2015 Startups of Forbes, Worth $250 Million

YEREVAN (Arka) — Armenian photo editing and sharing app PicsArt is among the five hottest 2015 startups of Forbes. The app, worth $250 million according to Forbes, considered a competitor of free app Instagram, was downloaded by 220 million users at the beginning of 2015 with 60 million being active users. Half of them were in Europe and Americas.

The Forbes list released Thursday named fast-growing Chicago startup Uptake no. 1. Forbes called Uptake, which launched in the summer of 2014 by Groupon Co-Founder Brad Keywell, a “nearly unknown” and “secretive” data analytics company that “came out of nowhere.” Uptake raised $45 million from GreatPoint Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Caterpillar, and Lightbank in October, valuing the startup at Unicorn status at $1.1 billion.

The top five along with higher profile Slack included also DoorDash and Postmates. Combined, the top 50 hottest startups in 2015 raised over $7 billion this year and have a total valuation close to $120 billion. The 2015 Forbes Hottest Startups list uses data from private company research firm Pitchbook. Only private companies that raised new funding rounds in 2015, analyzed via regulatory filings, were included.

The first version of PicsArt appeared for devices running on Android operating system in November 2011; in 2013 the application was available for devices working on iOS and in 2014 on Windows platforms. In 2014, the PicsArt was fifth in the list of 100 most popular free apps in the Apple App Store. PicsArt is now available in 13 languages.

Earlier this month PicsArt was named one of the Best Apps of 2015 by Google Play. “This recognition is a huge testament to the way that people interact with visual content and one another,” said Hovhannes Avoyan, CEO of PicsArt, “Consumers crave an experience that goes beyond simply capturing and sharing an image, which is why we’ve built our platform around the ideas of co-creation, discovery and community. Now anyone, regardless of skill level, can create amazing content on PicsArt and have their creations seen by millions of people around the world.”