Custom framing tech startup FrameBridge is expanding its services into helping people design and build gallery walls. The Lanham, Md.-based startup, which has raised close to $11.5 million in two years, much of it from Revolution, is adding the new concierge service on top of its current custom framing service.
"Gallery walls are more and more popular," said Matt Carrington, Framebridge's vice president of marketing. "It's something our customers have been asking about and now we can offer it to them."
The Framebridge Gallery Wall service connects customers with designers at Framebridge to help them put together the pictures they want to have on a wall in a kind of collage. That means any combo of art or personal photos, which Framebridge will then frame and help coordinate the placement on the wall. It costs $99 and includes $50 toward the actual framing. It's a lot like using an app to make a collage of your digital photos, just scaled up and made into physical media.
"What we're doing is giving people the same kind of custom service that we have for framing, but now for the gallery wall," Carrington said. "It makes the space unique for them."
It's a logical step for Framebridge in many ways. The reason that VCs have been happy to pour millions of dollars into Framebridge is that it fits into the larger "custom experience" ecosystem that's become so popular. Whether it's a ride from Uber, meals delivered by Galley or any number of on-demand luxury services available by app, things that once seemed very much limited to the very wealthy are now becoming accessible to a lot more people. Framebridge offers a more permanent, physical manifestation of that economy.
And, despite the fact that it sounds like a service specifically for homeowners, Carrington said the gallery wall is just as much for those who are renting. It's low-cost enough that people won't mind spending the money on a gallery wall even if it won't be a permanent home for the photos.
"Owners or renters, they'll still want to make a place for their photos like this," Carrington said. "We provide the most streamlined way to make it happen."
Streamlining was the operative word behind the original founding of Framebridge by Susan Tynan. The difference is a only a matter of scale. The tens of thousands of images already framed will now happen in larger batches than one at a time, though Carrington was quick to add that it won't cause a drop in quality.
"We know people will be really happy with their gallery walls," he said. "It's a good step forward for us."
