Photography giant acquires U.K. based family-photo sharing startup

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April 23, 2015 1:04 PM

Canon, in the spirit of big companies that want to improve and/or maintain their great services, has been looking into many avenues to improve its customer based services.

Canon camera's are very popular.

A London based startup Lifecake, which offers a photo-sharing app intended for parents with young children, has been bought by Canon Europe as the hardware giant plans to improve its services aspect of its business.

Details of the deal are undisclosed but it is thought that it is an all-in acquisition, including the Lifecake app, current six-man team and technology.

Canon remarks that acquiring Lifecake is a major step in the development of the company’s digital consumer services business interests as well as its ambition to “play a part in every image taken no matter what device is being used” – that is, not just Canon hardware alone.

It also refers to the purchase as a means of laying down foundations in London’s ‘Tech City’ (aka Silicon Roundabout) where the purchased startup is currently located.

Speaking to TechCrunch’s Steve O’Hear, Director of Digital Services at Canon Europe, Alberto Spinelli, said the move was just a start and the company hopes its purchase and plans for Lifecake will help attract more software talent from the bustling London Tech scene and show that Canon is a “cool” company to work for.

Lifecake offers a photo-sharing app for families which allows parents to save, arrange and share key moments of their children’s lives and was founded by former engineers at Skype, Yahoo and Qualcomm.

Some features of the app include granular privacy settings that let you identify who can see certain information and photos, create photo and video timelines, and the option to make printable photo books.

The Lifecake app has a sizeable 350,000 users, a third of which are active at any point in time, averaging four sessions every other week.

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