Olapic

Pioneer and early market leader in enterprise UGC visual commerce platforms

Olapic was a New York-based visual commerce platform founded in 2010 that enabled brands to harness the power of user-generated content (UGC) for marketing, advertising, and e-commerce purposes. The platform allowed brands to collect authentic visual content from social media and other channels, curate it for brand safety and quality, and display it across websites, product pages, email campaigns, and paid media. Olapic served a wide range of enterprise clients across retail, fashion, travel, and consumer goods, helping them drive engagement and conversion through authentic customer imagery rather than traditional brand-produced photography. Olapic was co-founded by Pau Sabria, Jose de Cabo, and Luis Sanz — three Columbia Business School alumni — and grew rapidly on the back of the explosion in social media visual content, particularly Instagram. The company raised approximately $30 million in venture funding before being acquired by Monotype Imaging Holdings in July 2016 for approximately $130 million. The acquisition was intended to complement Monotype's typography and brand identity offerings with visual content capabilities, positioning the combined entity as a broader brand expression platform. Following the acquisition, Olapic operated as a division within Monotype for several years, but the brand and product were eventually wound down and absorbed or discontinued as Monotype refocused its core business. Olapic's legacy lies in pioneering the enterprise UGC market, demonstrating the commercial value of authentic consumer-generated imagery at scale, and helping establish visual commerce as a distinct discipline within the broader AdTech and MarTech ecosystem.