A digital platform connecting consumers with professional photographers, SweetEscape, today (7/02) announced a new Series A round. It’s worth up to $6 million or equivalent with 84.8 billion Rupiah. The funding led by Openspace Ventures and Jungle Ventures, also involved in this round Burda Principal Investments and the previous investors.

In the mid-2018, the startup founded by David Soong and Emile Etienne has secured $1 million seed funding led by East Ventures, participated also Beenext, SkyStar Capital, and GDP Venture.

The following funding is to be allocated for AI technology development in order to improve the platform’s capability. In addition, for operational expansion throughout Asia, SweetEscape plans to double up talents by 2019. Currently, the company has more than 100 employees distributed in Jakarta, Singapore, and Manila.

SweetEscape’s Co-Founder and CEO, David Soong said, AI technology optimation is highly required to improve post-production process. The hype of technology capability supposed to help photographic image processing.

Based in Jakarta, SweetEscape was founded in 2017. The previous founder, Emile, was also the Co-Founder & COO of Bridestory. Currently, they’ve reached more than 500 cities in over 100 countries.

In Indonesia, SweetEscape has a direct competitor named Frame a Trip, with a similar business model and target market. Founded by some experts in the business and entertainment industry, including Dian Sastro Wardoyo, Frame a Trip is targeting to cover more than 500 cities this year.

Emile as the Co-Founder & COO added, in order to scale up the business, SweetEscape will expand the photography services for all cases. Not only a trip or tour but also for a birthday party, baby shower, graduation, and many more.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian