Foto Wants To Be the Digital Distribution Marketplace For Photographers in Africa

If you work in the creative, web or publishing industries in Africa, you would agree that it could be really tough getting that perfect image to use for your work. Often times, the project may require that you use an African-esque landscape or a simple, yet unique portrait image.

Chances are that you would find that perfect image to purchase from leading micro-stock image agencies like iStockPhoto, Corbis and Getty Images, but what if you don’t find one or the cost is rather exorbitant? Or let’s say you decide to hire a photographer to shoot that perfect image for your work, would you find an affordable one that offers royalty-free images?

These are a few of the problems that Foto, a new stock photo discovery and distribution start-up out of Nigeria wants to solve. The Spark-backed start-up claims to have over 10,000 images on its platform and ambitiously plans to make about 100,000 images available online before the end of the year.

In a Tumblr blog post announcing the new start-up, Spark co-founder, Jason Njoku said that the company builder would be pouring $150,000 into Foto for its first six months post-launch, having already invested $70,000 into the stock photo startup. From an initial 3-person team, the start-up has grown to 13 people working out of Spark’s Anthony Valley building, focusing on development, product management, customer support, image editing, photography and contextual search structuring.

But perhaps the trickiest part of this adventure lies on whether or not Nigerians would fork out N7,500 ($45) for a photo. Of course, pricing for images on Foto varies depending on size and perhaps resolution, as you can buy an awesome small (500KB-sized) image for as low as N2,500 ($15). Still, one wonders if Foto’s target market are really Nigerians who naturally would find it difficult to pay for a stock photo.