Social network Facebook has bought Instagram – a profitless, two-year-old photo-sharing application – for $US1 billion.
Instagram is a free photo sharing application that allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filter, then share it on a variety of social networking services including Instagram’s own. A distinctive feature confines photos into a square shape, in homage to both the Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid cameras. This contrasts with the 4:3 aspect ratio more typically used by mobile device cameras.
Instagram was initially supported on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch; in April 2012, the company added support for Android camera phones running 2.2 (Froyo) or higher. It is distributed via the iTunes App Store and Google Play. On April 9, 2012, Facebook announced it would acquire the company (and its 13 employees) for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock, with plans to keep it independently managed.
13 Lucky Employees of Instagram visiting Facebook HQ
Kevin Systrom is Instagram’s CEO and co-founder
Date joined:June 2010
Role and career history: Kevin Systrom was a product manager at NextStop before co-founding Instagram with Mike Krieger. Prior to that he was a corporate development associate at Google.
Systrom owned 40% of Instagram when it was acquired.
Mike Krieger is co-founder of Instagram
Date joined:June 2010
Role and career history: “Kevin Systrom and I started Instagram in mid-2010 and both designed and developed the application,” he writes on LinkedIn. Prior to Instagram, Krieger was a user experience designer and engineer at Meebo and a graduate of Stanford University.
Krieger owned 10% of Instagram when it was acquired by Facebook.
Dan Toffey works on Community for Instagram
Date joined:March 2012
Role and career history: Toffey may be Instagram’s only non-San Francisco-based employee. Based in Washington D.C., he works on community for Instagram. Prior to joining Instagram he was web communications manager at Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Josh Riedel handles community and partnerships at Instagram
Date joined:October 2010
Role and career history: Riedel works on community and partnerships at Instagram. Prior to Instagram he was a community manager at NextStop. He graduated from Reed College in 2007.
Philip McAllister is one of Instagram’s engineers
Date joined:January 2012
Role and career history: McAllister can’t escape Facebook. He joined Instagram from Gowalla, a Foursquare-like startup that was acquired by Facebook in December.
Ryan Gomba is a developer at Instagram
Date joined:March 2012
Role and career history: Ryan is a new hire at Instagram and is a developer for the company. Prior to joining Instagram he was the founder of AppThat and an engineer at SimpleGeo.
Bailey Richardson joined Instagram last month. She works on community at Instagram
Date joined:March 2012
Role and career history: Richardson was hired by Instagram last month. Prior to Instagram she was a community and marketing manager at UGallery. She graduated from Stanford in 2009.
Amy Cole handles business operations
Date joined:October 2011
Role and career history: Cole handles business operations for Instagram. Prior to joining Instagram she ran business development at Sephora.
Gregor Hochmuth is an engineer
Date joined:December 2011
Role and career history: Hochmuth has been an engineer at Instagram for five months. Prior to joining Instagram he was co-founder and CEO of Modi and a product manager at Google.
Jessica Zollman is a community evangelist at Instagram
Date joined:August 2011
Role and career history: Zollman writes on LinkedIn: “As Community Evangelist at Instagram I am tasked with advocating on behalf of the Instagram user base. I teach the community about our company and the product through Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. I provide timely customer support, as well as communicate issues and potential product changes or improvements voiced by our users to the entire team. It is my goal to place a human face to the company both online through Instagram’s Weekend Hashtag Projects, and offline through events such as the Worldwide Instameets. ”
Prior to joining Instagram, Zollman was a user support specialist at Formspring and a Customer Relations Specialist at Linden Lab.
Shayne Sweeney joined Instagram in 2010
Date joined:November 2010
Role and career history: Shayne Sweeney is a self-proclaimed “entrepreneurial hacker and developer passionate about consumer Internet and high-tech software startups.” Prior to Instagram, Sweeney was the founder of Credentify and a principal engineer at Build.com
Video: PandoDaily Interviews @Shayne, Instagram’s First Engineer
Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo is one of Instagram’s angel investors
Quora
Date invested:February 2011 ($7 million Series A round)Role and career history: D’Angelo was Facebook’s first CTO and he co-founded Quora with Charlie Cheever.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square, is another Instagram angel investor
Twitter / @jack
Date invested: February 2011 ($7 million Series A round)
Role and career history: Jack Dorsey founded Square and co-founded Twitter. He’s an angel investor in Instagram.
Chris Sacca was an early Google employee who made an angel investment in Instagram
Chris Sacca
Date invested: February 2011 ($7 million Series A round)
Role and career history: Chris Sacca was an early Google employee and he’s since made a number of angel investments, including Twitter.
Baseline Ventures was a seed investor and Series A investor in Instagram
Steve Anderson founded Baseline Ventures
Baseline Ventures
Date invested: March 2010 and February 2011 ($500,000 seed round and $7 million Series A round)
About: Baseline Ventures was founded by Steve Anderson. It’s other investments include Aardvark, which was acquired by Google, Twitter and Trialpay.
Andreessen Horowitz was a seed investor in Instagram but dumped it when it became a competitor to another portfolio company, PicPlz
Date invested: March 2010 ($500,000 seed round)
About: Andreessen Horowitz was a seed investor in Instagram but when the company pivoted to become a PicPlz competitor, the firm removed it from its portfolio. AH still owned 10% of Instagram, though.
Instagram raised $50 million at a $500 million valuation last week from Thrive, Sequoia and Greylock
Business Insider
Sequoia, Thrive and Greylock reportedly led a new, massive round in Instagram last week.Benchmark Capital was also an Instagram investor, we hear.
