Sometimes positive surprises come at an unexpected time and from an unexpected source. This is one of them.
As some of you know, we have been working on World Illustrated for a little while. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it is explained below.
It is almost there but we need one last push. Please give this message serious consideration.Importantly, we are also launching The World Illustrated Foundation, a non-profit foundation which will use our professional, quality visual content to highlight causes where people are working to achieve or need a freedom.
Not just the big ones but also the small and local ones.
To make both World Illustrated and the Word Illustrated Foundation a reality, we need a small amount of money. You can make a real difference to people’s lives from as little as $200 with the added bonus of simultaneously making an investment in an exciting business venture. As an investor, you will be acknowledged as a founder of what we hope will be a wonderful social initiative (unless you would rather stay anonymous).
We are actively seeking more content contributors and would welcome content contributions, as well as country representatives for the Foundation.
How to help
We are looking to raise up to GBP300,000 which will be used to complete our tech build, further expand our operational capabilities and launch the foundation. We have already raised approximately 40 % of the minimum funding requirement of GBP100,000. We are doing this via two funding offers.
One offer is again via Wefunder, a leading US community funding platform. You can access the offer and read all about the company here. Invest in World Illustrated – Your Window To The World: A social app showcasing professional imagery of everything where you can see, learn, share & shop. | Wefunder, Home of the Community Round.
If you want to go this route, please do so now as under US regulations, we must raise at least $50k on the platform by 30th April.
The other route is an Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) offer which is available to UK taxpayers investors and has many tax advantages. If you would like to invest via the EIS offer, please email me on [email protected]. Both offers are on identical terms. The pre-money valuation for early subscribers is GBP13.68 million and then rises to GBP15.2 million.
I am confident that World Illustrated is a tremendous investment opportunity with limited downside risk. More importantly, perhaps, you will be helping us make a difference to people’s lives via the foundation.
Please email me if you have any questions or would like to explore other ways to help/invest.
About World Illustrated Inc
World Illustrated is a web-publisher and a social media platform that has B2B and B2C content licensing and B2C merchandising functionality. One could describe World Illustrated as a visual Wikipedia, Instagram, Getty images and a merchandising platform with a bit of Pinterest thrown in. We publish multi-media content and harness the power of AI to enhance the user experience.
Our USP is a vast library of professional visual content that is organized and presented in a way that it will attract, inform, educate and entertain users who have an interest in a specific topic. We control a growing pool of over 270 million professionally shot images covering an extensive range of subjects, some of which we own. No other social media platform has access to, nor presents this type of quality content or offers licensing and merchandising functionality. We are the user’s window to the world where they can see, share and shop. You can see the quality of our content and how we organize it on our content management site here. public.worldillustrated.com
Significantly de-risking the investment, World Illustrated has acquired a long-established, well-known UK-based photo agency called Avalon which supplies some of the professional content. Furthermore, Avalon’s staff have been integrated into World Illustrated. The availability of these resources significantly reduces our funding needs. Avalon has annual sales of approximately $900,000 and is breakeven to slightly profitable.
We intend to use our professional contributors as our marketing department, further reducing the need for external funding and increasing our chances of viral growth. We have over 8,500 professional contributors, most of whom use Instagram or Facebook to illustrate their work. Each will be provided with a World Illustrated social media account from which they can license and merchandise their content, activities that they cannot do on other social media platforms. A win for them and a win for the company. If we started with only 1,000 contributor accounts who each attracted 50 followers, who in turn attracted 50 followers and who each attracted a further 50 followers, we would have 125 million users. Quite compelling. I don’t see why we cannot be as big as Pinterest which has 450 million annual users and a market cap in the billions.
About the World Illustrated Foundation
Social media platforms are often criticized as not being a force for good and are sometimes accused being a source of problems. We, at World Ilustrated Inc, want to take a different approach, hence the foundation.
Images are often the way that we find out issues facing people. They can be very compelling, harrowing and inspiring. We receive many such images. Too often they do not get seen and the causes that they seek to highlight get overlooked. They will be published on the main platform where users will also be able to create communities around a cause and where there will be functionality that allows the user to make a donation to it.
Through the work of the foundation, we will aim to be a force for good and give oxygen to these causes. Our chosen focus will be freedom. Freedoms of all types, big and small, local and international. #Cryfreedom.world will be a specific initiative of the Foundation.
As an investor in World Illustrated Inc, you will also be credited as a founder of the foundation in its publications, unless you would like to remain anonymous. If you invest $200+ you will be a Founding Supporter. If you invest $1,000+ you will be a Founder. If you invest $5,000+ you will be a Founding Patron.
Part of the funds raised in this offer will be used to build the necessary technology.
The foundation websites will be www.worldillustratedfoundation.org and www.cryfreedom.world
