Instagram’s $500M Haul

AllThingsD is reporting that San Francisco-based Instragram is raising $50M at a $500M valuation. Instagram raised $7M in Series A led by Benchmark Capital just over a year ago.

For sure there are a number of things that are impressive about Instragram. It built 30M users very quickly, and it just launched on Android and is making quick work with this. Also, it did this with just 15 employees. Moreover, successful photo businesses tend to find buyers willing to spend a lot - we noted yesterday that HP paid $300M for Snapfish.

However, Instagram’s functionality seems easy to replicate. We have been using Camera Awesome from Smugmug, which is as good or better than Instagram. And it’s super easy to switch from one photo app to the next. Given the ability for companies to easily buy installs in mobile, competitors can grow very rapidly.

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