Will Adobe And Canva Follow PicsArt Moves?

As a child in Soviet Armenia in the early 1980s, Hovhannes Avoyan aspired to attend the state-run art school. Applicants were required to submit a vase still life drawing in order to be considered for the contest. Avoyan's sketch was mediocre at the best of times. Instead, he turned to computer science, where he focused on the first generation of AI and machine learning.

It was a wise choice. Three software start-ups were created by Avoyan and sold over the course of the next 30 years. A wealthy entrepreneur, he rose to prominence in Armenia's growing tech industry. A lifelong art lover, he encouraged his children to pursue their passions. On one occasion in 2011, Zara, an 11-year-old daughter, came to him depressed. The drawing she shared on social media was met with a lot of criticism. Originally, she had intended to resign her position.

“The criticism shook her confidence. She was about to give up,” says Avoyan, 56.

“It reminded me of my situation when I gave up art for another career because I didn't get the right support.”

So Avoyan created a mobile app with a few tech tools to assist his daughter in improving her photography.

“I wanted to give her a positive environment and give her resources to empower her creative talent.”

Photo-editing app Picsart, created by Avoyan in San Francisco one year later, has gone viral thanks to Avoyan's encouragement. There are more than 1 billion downloads of the design and editing app from more than 180 countries. Apps in 28 languages, including French, German, and Spanish, are now available for the English-language app created by Armenian-born Avoyan. Users edit more than 1 billion photos and videos for social media, commerce sites, and digital ads every month, with the majority of them being under the age of 35.

There is a more powerful version of Picsart with more features for $4.66 per month. A small amount of advertising is present on Picsart, but no data is collected.

An app for smartphones called Picsart turns smartphone photos into mixed-media artwork. A few taps and swipes are all it takes to edit a photograph. "PicsArt"

It's going to get a lot bigger, in my opinion. With the help of Sequoia, GSquared and Tribe Capital, Avoyan's 800-person start-up has raised $130 million in Series C funding. In other words, the company's post-money valuation is around $1.5 billion. Avoyan's stake in the company, on the other hand, is the largest.

“Picsart has a lot of similarities to WhatsApp. It’s a global asset and universal platform used by people everywhere,” According to former Facebook VP of Product and Engineering, Mike Vernal, who is currently a partner at Sequoia Capital,

“And they both were a phenomenon around the world before they got popular in the U.S.”

Social media and digital commerce are two of the most influential trends in technology, and Picsart is no exception. In a world where social platforms and smartphones have turned everyone into a publisher, Picsart has become the design department for hundreds of millions of users. In order to make editing and enhancing photos and videos as simple as adding an Instagram filter, Picsart has developed AI and Java-based tools.

“It's got a bunch of really terrific businesses all rolled into one in a global presence, which you don't often see,” says G Squared’s Larry Aschebrook.

“The younger population has been very involved with it for some time and it’s now prevalent with professions and the creator economy.”

Using Picsart, people of all skill levels can touch-up and stylize their social media posts. By changing the lighting, adding color splashes and meme-friendly stickers you can create a whole new look. Aside from wrinkles, red eyes and acne, you can also trim a few inches off your waistline using digital means.

Nevertheless, Picsart can be used for a lot more than just taking pretty selfies. Entrepreneurs rely on Picsart to give their products a glossy, catalog look on critical marketplaces like Shopify, Etsy, eBay, Depop and Doordash as millions of independent businesses, restaurants and local shops flock to the Web amid Covid-19. Content on websites, blogs, email marketing and social media advertisements are no different.

“Today’s people’s preferred tool is the phone,” says Sequoias’s Vernal.

“Customers take photos of products and can quickly remove the background, touch-up the image, and post to their site.”

Picsart’s seamless experience has been Avoyan’s goal since he built the first tool for his daughter in 2011.

“Too many people equate good technique with being creative,” says Avoyan.

“Our technology enhances everyone’s technique and can be the engine for visual creativity.”

The Armenian-born Avoyan was raised in Yerevan by his mother, a medical professor and pathologist. Stability, predictability, and boredom characterized communist Armenia. In addition to a high-ranking Communist Party position, the best career path was in academia. He decided to pursue a PhD in computer science at The American University of Armenia after being rejected from art school.

Amateurs can use Picsart's AI editing tools to make their social media posts, digital commerce pages, and social media marketing look more professional. In 1992, the PICSART Revolution took place. The Soviet Union was no longer stable. As a result of this, war and the chaos of young capitalism took their place. Some academics went on to start their own businesses. Cedit was a software services company that Avoyan founded in 1996 and sold to Lycos, a pioneering web search engine, in 1998 for a few million dollars. A year later, he founded Sourcio, a software R&D firm and incubator. It was followed by Monitis, a website monitoring service.

In 2011, TeamViewer/GFI Software was purchased for $4 million. In the same year, he launched Picsart, a photo editing program.

Artavazd Mehrabyan and Mikayel Vardanyan were Avoyan's first hires when he turned Picsart into a business. Due to the lack of iPhones in Armenia and the fact that most engineers programmed in Java, the app was launched on Android instead. It was a happy accident. In the Android operating system, the image-editing market was less crowded, which gave them access to a massive, international user base quickly. As a result of Avoyan and his team's growth hacking, Picsart has remained on Android's featured apps list.

He recruited more than 200 computer science interns a year as Picsart grew, leveraging his connections in academia. As a result, it is the most cost-effective way to hire. Each year they acquire new skills. As Avoyan puts it, "it's a win-win for everyone." Today, he is still in charge of the program.

After receiving $130 million in venture capital funding, Avoyan will use the money for hiring more engineers to work on AI features. And that's necessary to keep up with hundreds of smaller design apps, billion-dollar startups like Canva, and Adobe, the $12.85 billion (2020 sales) incumbent in the market. "I want to remain independent," says Avoyan, who says that his next 12 to 18-month goal is a public offering (IPO).

As of now, he plans to increase marketing and advertising to help the app grow faster. As Picsart grows, Avoyan is likely to create a sales team for large corporations, offering tools for design, publishing, and collaboration similar to those offered by Dropbox and Airtable.

In 2015, Sequoia invested in Picsart and Avoyan moved Picsart's headquarters to San Francisco, but the majority of his engineering team remains in Armenia. Though the cost of talent is lower, the outsider, hustler culture of Avoyan's country has tremendous power.

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