Path, the San Francisco-based company that makes a photo sharing app has raised $ 8.5 million in new investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Index Ventures along with Digital Garage of Japan. The company co-founded by ex-Facebooker Dave Morin and Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning has raised a total of $ 11.2 million in venture capital. That’s a lot of money for a company that has yet to gain any visible traction or even have a hint of a business model.
I personally have a terribly low opinion of the application and the service, which has been thoroughly thrashed in the market by the likes of Instagram. The company has done nothing to really change my mind. Path’s unique selling proposition is that it allows you to share photos privately with 50 of your close contacts – friends and family so to speak. Since their initial launch, the company has launched ability to share 10-second video clips. The photos, videos and text are shared as “moments.” The company claims hundreds of thousands of users who have shared 2 million moments. Assuming there are 100,000 Path users, then that works out to about 20 moments per user. And if there are 200,000 users, the number declines to 10 moments per user. That’s not a lot of activity on the system.
On the other hand, now that Path is allowing you to share moments via emails — maybe there will be growth! And yes, I am being cheeky!
