London firm Popsa gets £3 million to automate photobooks

The U.K. Standard reports London tech firm Popsa has raised £3 million from top investors to develop an automated way to make photobooks.

Popsa, founded in 2016, has clinched £2.2 million in a seed funding round led by Pembroke Venture Capital Trust, a backer of brands like Five Guys and Alexa Chung’s fashion label.

Famous ad man Sir John Hegarty, co-founder of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, and top Silicon Valley VC funder 500 Startups have also backed the firm in a separate £800,000 funding round.

Popsa, led by 28-year old chief executive Liam Houghton, is aiming to “disrupt” incumbents like Photobox, Moonpig and Snapfish by using AI to cut down the laborious photobook process.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity to change what is a very manual industry through automation,” said Houghton, a former architect who used to run a tech incubator.

“You can make a photo book but it will probably take you a few hours and you have to manually put the photos into place. We’re getting rid of all that and using technology to generate those things automatically.”

Sales have grown by 60% a month over the past year and nearly one in two customers come back for more, Houghton says.