After a new influx of cash, expect big things from Stipple

Back in August, San Francisco-based start up Stipple launched their new service which can generally be described as an in-picture labeling tool but in actuality is way more than that.

Today, the company and its founder and CEO Rey Flemings, announced some pretty amazing news. They have secured a $2 million seed round which was co-led by venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) as well as FLOODGATE, Mike Maples, Naval Ravikant, Eghosa Omoigui, Global Brain Corporation, Quest Venture Partners, Parkview Ventures, John Ferber and, yes, Justin Timberlake.

The exciting part?

They were able to do that in just 3 short months. You might be asking yourself ‘how.’ Well, we had a chance to talk to Flemings about the product, about the investment and about the future of one of the most exciting start-ups here in the Bay Area.

First, a little bit about the product.

Stipple is a new way to interact with photos. Flemings’ product, he hopes, will solve the problem of understanding, sharing, discovery and monetization within a photo. Yeah, we have tagging in Facebook and annotations in Flickr, but what about the trillions of other pictures out there on the web?

That’s where Stipple fits in.

Think of it this way. Think about how many images you look at on the internet on a daily basis. Have you ever thought about what was going on in the picture you’re looking at? “What shirt is that guy wearing?” “Who makes those sunglasses?” “Where can I get that hat?”

Stipple’s tool allows publishers to tag their images with small little dots that will answer those questions within the images themselves. Mouse over a dot on a shirt, Stipple shows you what it is, where to buy it and if there are deals going on.

You can also tag a person using People Dots, check out a video of it here, which allows you to tag a person. And don’t forget places, you can certainly tag places as well.And while that’s all exciting, maybe the most enthralling and of course, lucrative part of Stipple is that it pays to tag photos on your site.

After installing Stipple and tagging the photos on your photos, you’ll be able to pull in money with a click-through and affiliate partnership through whatever is that are tagged in the photos. You’ll also be able to view and manage relevant information like traffic information.

It’s a great idea and one that Flemings is obviously very excited about. Who wouldn’t be after securing a $2 million dollar investment?

And although he wouldn’t disclose what he and his team were working on, with funding like that, it’s safe to expect big things from the small SOMA startup in the coming months.

You can find more about Stipple at their website.