PastBook secures new investment round and launches collaborative photo-book platform

The company announces it today from the stage of the Shell Livewire Award as one of the top innovative start-up in The Netherlands.

The investment comes as a follow-up round from two private angel investors, who had already participated in the seed-round in September 2012, and by a private Dutch fund that lead this round. This will bring the company to round A, onto what the company is already working on.

At the beginning of June 2013, the company has seen Stefano Cutello become the sole founder when Giuseppe Prioriello, former COO, left it in an amicable way for personal reasons. During this time Stefano dealt with a possible acquisition from a US printing company, but ended up turning them down to continue focusing on the product and execution following his own vision, that is way broader than just printing.

For PastBook, who graduated from RockStart.Accelerator just last year, the new investment has secured the future development of its mission on its own, to help people relive memories. It will aid the Company in boosting the growth and distribution of the new product it is launching today: a collaborative photo-book platform that lets people collaborate to put photos together and create keepsake books, in just few seconds, from any device.

After addressing the initial problem of the fragmentation of memories between social-networks, with the claim of “Turning memories into the perfect gift” (http://hub.pastbook.com), the collaborative solution (http://collab.pastbook.com) will now focus on the fragmentation of memories between people to “Create wonderful books, together with your friends”.

Online user habits indicates that there is a genuine motivation and movement towards shared experiences; group chat and crowdsourcing online are just some examples that our virtual experiences needn’t be spent alone. The digital world has become a second chance for experiencing our lives together, and PastBook’s mission is perfectly matching this proposition.

The flow is very simple and straightforward. Create a story, and invite by email or social networks relatives and friends to participate: you’ll be all able to add text and photos by direct upload or importing them from any social networks. The result is a unique story to keep on-line or to bring off-line as a PDF or as a printed book.

The service is available for everyone on the web starting today at http://collab.pastbook.com and, thanks to its fully responsive design, it will be available immediately on mobile and tablets. Native iOS and Android apps are coming soon.

It is ideal for a group of friends and family members to explore the new group-gifting scene, allowing people to share experiences and pitch into buying one gift for a close one.

The first beta users used it in occasions of holidays, parties, team events or weddings where, for example, all the guests at the ceremony had contributed with pictures and quotes about the couple, so that they can have a keepsake photo-book of their love-story.
Another great use-case the company noticed is the “In Memoriam” book, where relatives and friends contributed with their own moments to celebrate the memory of somebody they loved who had passed away. A story like that will last forever.

With this new platform, PastBook is also opening up its technology to businesses with two models: white-label solutions for publishers, weddings and funeral companies - that will be able to provide the service under their own brand and domain without any IT resource needed - and RESTful API integrations, providing to third parties apps the possibility to create and print photo-books on demand for their users, offering so a new revenue stream for their business model.
A number of preselected Dutch and International partners are already lined up for their white label solutions. If interested, companies can have more information contacting partners@pastbook.com

Stefano Cutello, CEO of the Company says that the main differentiation to Facebook Shared Albums is that for PastBook "this is not a feature, but our core focus and mission: let people put memories together" compared to Facebook that is about "sharing and connecting everyone". PastBook sees itself as complementary service to Facebook, instead than a competitor: "people have to be connected and share their moments, but they also have to be able to easily look back".
People can use PastBook signing-in with Facebook or even just by email, import the content from any sources -Facebook included- and print or export their story in a unique, personal, experience that can also be extended and customized by the Company's partners.