In today’s business world, visual content often speaks louder than words. This spurs demand for image banks, or online photo libraries, and Ukraine happens to be home to one of the most popular ones.
DepositPhotos, which has more than 40 million royalty-free images, videos and vector graphics for sale, was founded in Kyiv in 2009. Its core development office remains there. Like many information technology firms with Ukrainian roots, it is based in the United States, in New York. There it competes with such giants as Getty Images and Shutterstock photo banks.
“Our heart is in Ukraine because it’s awesome here and there are so many talented people,” said Dmitry Sergeev, DepositPhotos founder and CEO.
While the firm admittedly has not made any technological breakthroughs and certainly did not invent photobanks, Sergeev said the company owes its spectacular success to high-quality customer service.
“Innovations are in the details. It works wisely. That’s the secret,” Sergeev said.
A native of Russia, Sergeev, 37, moved to Ukraine 12 years ago and immediately “went mad for Ukraine: fell in love, got married, and the rest of the usual things that happen to those who fall in love with Ukraine.”
Ukraine is a great place to live, he said, since “the most interesting events of modern times happen here,” including the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013-14 EuroMaidan Revolution
He initially set out to start a business in the music industry in Kyiv, but instead set up two technology firms.
DepositFiles, an online fi le-sharing service, was his first venture to gain global recognition. In 2007, it broke into the ranks of the 100 most visited websites globally. The service enabled people to upload and share any files through the website. The business was quite burdensome, however. There were constant complaints from copyright holders, and some content was pirated or shared through the service illegally. That’s why Sergeev sold the business in 2009.
As a professional photographer, his wife inspired the launch of his next project: DepositPhotos.
And like many startups, Sergeev started working on it out of a basement in Kyiv in 2009.
He spent $1 million developing the service and buying content. Within six months, the service got noticed by investors and TMT Investments venture fund bought 30 percent of its equity for $3 million.
While refusing to discuss finances in detail, Sergeev said the company is worth $100 million now, citing recent trends among competitors. “Last year, Adobe Systems bought Fotolia for $800 million. Fotolia isn’t that much bigger than us,” he said.
Sergeev found talented people willing to work for free in the beginning. “Now many employees are option holders and, given the perfect circumstances, they all will become millionaires.”
He chose Kyiv as the base for the company’s development arm for more profound reasons than just cheap labor, however.
“I love Ukraine and that’s why I’m here,” he said. “We’re in the IT field, and in terms of workforce, here it’s the same as anywhere else in the civilized world – expensive.”
Most of the fi rm’s clients are in the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and Brazil.
Users can register on the website and buy any image, video or vector graphic for $1 to $80 per unit. Frequent users benefit from different pricing packages as well.
Hundreds of thousands of professional and amateur photographers, illustrators and artists provide the service with content. They get up to 75 percent of the price of each purchased unit, while the rest goes to the company.
“Earlier, to illustrate something, you
had to order a photo shoot or hire an illustrator,
which would cost you big money,”
Sergeev said. Now, businesses can
buy digital content from the photo banks.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Looksery, and SoftServe.
