Lightricks, which makes the popular selfie editing app Facetune, raises $135M Series C led by Goldman Sachs at a post-money valuation of $1B
Facetune, a photo editing app that empowers users to cover their gray hairs, refine their jaw lines, and reshape their noses …
Context & Ripple Effects
Lightricks has been building past its flagship for years: after the team behind Facetune launched Enlight to challenge Adobe in 2015 and followed with a $60M round on the strength of Enlight Pixaloop's early subscribers, this Goldman-led Series C takes it to a $1B post-money valuation as a multi-app studio rather than a single-hit developer.
The check also extends a Goldman pattern — the bank separately led a $50M Series C in YouCam Makeup maker Perfect Corp., making it a repeat backer of mobile camera and beauty-editing apps. The payoff line came two years later, when Lightricks raised a $130M Series D at a $1.8B valuation with eleven subscription apps in the portfolio.
First-order effects
- Lightricks gains capital and a bulge-bracket backer to scale its subscription model across multiple editing apps, reducing dependence on Facetune alone.
- Goldman Sachs adds a second camera/beauty app holding alongside Perfect Corp., concentrating its exposure in the category.
Second-order effects
- Rivals such as Perfect Corp. now compete against an equally bank-funded peer, pushing both toward broader app portfolios and brand-facing AR features rather than one-off paid downloads.
- Other subscription app studios face a higher fundraising benchmark: a $1B valuation for an indie photo-editing portfolio resets what later-stage investors expect from the category.
Third-order effects
- The trajectory — from single hit app to eleven-app subscription suite to the 2026 split separating Lightricks' consumer unit from its LTX GenAI unit — suggests consumer app studios are structurally reorganizing around AI capabilities once they reach scale.
The trend: Mobile editing apps are compounding from single hits into venture-backed subscription portfolios, with financial institutions like Goldman Sachs underwriting the consolidation.