Metuchen, New Jersey-based photo-sharing company Phanfare has raised $2.5 million, according to paidContent. This is Phanfare’s third round of funding and the investment was led by Azure Capital Partners. Acadia Woods Partners also participated in this round along with Dwight Merriman, (DoubleClick’s co-founder), Kevin Ryan (former CEO of DoubleClick), and Fabrice Grinda (founder of Zingy).
Phanfare makes money by selling subscriptions and competes directly with Photobucket and Flickr. The disadvantage that Phanfare has is that it is already competing against major photo-sharing players that are backed by major corporations such as Flickr (owned by Yahoo) and Photobucket (owned by News Corp). However, this could also work out in Phanfare’s favor because adding features around the website won’t require as much bureaucracy. Currently, Phanfare has roughly 10,000 customers.
