Pixelapse

What Pixelapse does

Pixelapse was a visual version control and collaboration platform for designers, often described as "GitHub for designers." Founded in September 2011 in Palo Alto by Min Ming Lo (a former Google designer) and Shravan, with first employee Michael Wu joining April 2012, the company built tooling to solve broken designer-developer handoffs and messy shared-folder asset management. The core platform supported 50+ design file formats (Adobe Creative Suite including .psd, .ai, .eps, .indd; Sketch; OmniGraffle; PDF; multi-page/multi-artboard documents) with automatic preview generation, revision tracking across moves/renames/edits, comment threads with assignable action items, and team role-based permissions. Adjacent products included the Sync+ desktop application (Mac and Windows with real-time sync), Pixelapse for Teams (team dashboard and per-seat pricing), The Inspector design-tool suite (Color Eyedropper, Measurement Tool, Magnification Loupe, Freehand Drawing, Shape Detection), and the Design Toolbelt free utilities (Color Converter, Lorem Ipsum). The BOLD blog served as a thought-leadership sub-brand, and the Open Design Movement (June 2014) promoted open-source design sharing.

The business model was a freemium SaaS with public projects free and paid plans gated by number of private projects (individuals) or team seats (teams), each contributing 20GB to a shared storage pool. GTM was product-led growth via self-serve web signup and downloadable desktop apps, complemented by community-led initiatives (Open Design Movement, BOLD content marketing) and earned media (Show HN February 2012, TechCrunch launch February 2013). Customers were freelance designers, creative teams at agencies, and software development teams consuming design assets for implementation. Seed funding closed in June 2012 from a syndicate including Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Salesforce, Digital Garage, SVAngel, and angels from Zynga, Google, and Gusto. Pixelapse was acquired by Dropbox in January 2015; the standalone product was deprecated in August 2016 and fully sunset on November 1, 2016, with features subsequently integrated into Dropbox's core product (Comments 2015, Design Previews 2015, Annotations 2016).

Name

Pixelapse

Legal name

Pixelapse

Website

https://pixelapse.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Acquired

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Pixelapse was a visual version control and collaboration platform for designers, supporting 50+ design file formats with version tracking, annotations, and designer-developer handoff tooling. It served freelance designers, creative teams, and agencies via a freemium SaaS model before being acquired by Dropbox in 2015 and sunset in 2016.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Design Collaboration Software

NAICS

Software Publishers (513210)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)

akta.pro primary industry

Content & Creative Studio for Creators (Concepting/Production) (MPAAAHAD)

Keywords

• Design version control
• Creative file collaboration
• Design asset management
• Cloud file synchronization
• Designer developer handoff

Headquarters

HQ city

Palo Alto

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Subscription Plans - Individual: Freemium model with free tier for public projects. Paid plans revolve around number of private projects. Public designs with storage and backup are free.
2. Team Plans: Team plans scale by number of team members with unlimited projects, storage, and sharing. Each member contributes 20GB to shared storage pool. Additional storage available in 100GB increments.
3. Design Toolbelt: Standalone design utility tools including Color Converter, Lorem Ipsum generator, and Inspector - available for free use to drive engagement

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Pixelapse was a visual version control and collaboration platform for designers, often described as "GitHub for designers." The core offering provided document backup, file sync across Mac/Windows/web/mobile, version history tracking, structured feedback (conversations/annotations), and team management for creative projects. It supported 50+ file formats including Adobe Creative Suite files (.psd, .ai, .eps), Sketch, InDesign, OmniGraffle, and PDF, with automatic preview generation.

Product overview

Pixelapse was a unified visual version control and collaboration platform for designers, often described as "GitHub for designers." The core product (Pixelapse) provided document backup, version control, and real-time collaboration with support for 50+ file formats. The portfolio included desktop sync application (Sync+), team management (Pixelapse for Teams), and a suite of design inspection tools (The Inspector) covering color picking, measurement, and shape detection. The Design Toolbelt offered supplementary utilities including Color Converter and Lorem Ipsum generator. BOLD served as a design publication platform. The product supported Adobe Creative Suite files (.psd, .ai, .eps), Sketch, InDesign, and OmniGraffle. In January 2015, Pixelapse was acquired by Dropbox with development efforts focused on bringing collaboration features to the core Dropbox product. Pixelapse was fully sunset in November 2016.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• BOLD by Pixelapse: A platform for design articles and thought leadership content

Products and services

• Pixelapse Visual version control and collaboration platform for designers providing document backup, version control, real-time sync, file previews, annotation, milestone tracking, and team management for creative teams, agencies, and freelance designers. Supports 50+ file formats including Adobe Creative Suite files (.psd, .ai, .eps), Sketch, InDesign, OmniGraffle, and multi-page PDFs.
• Pixelapse for Teams Team management product offering a dashboard for managing members, viewing usage and permissions, and coordinating design assets across teams. Includes unlimited projects, collaborators, and reviewers, with 20GB shared storage per member and per-seat subscription pricing with a 14-day free trial.
• Sync+ Desktop synchronization application providing real-time file sync between the user's local Mac/Windows machine and the Pixelapse cloud platform. Includes progress visualization, sync state indicators, native desktop notifications, and quick conversation replies.
• Design Toolbelt Collection of standalone design utility tools including the Inspector (image inspection), Color Converter (hex/RGB/named colors), and Lorem Ipsum generator. Offered as free standalone utilities to support designer workflows and accelerate designer-developer handoff.
• The Inspector Browser-based image inspection tool suite for designer-to-developer handoff. Includes Hand Tool, Color Eyedropper (pixel-precise color capture with hex/RGB/alpha), Box and Line Measurement Tools, Magnification Loupe (200-1600% zoom), Rulers & Guides, Freehand Drawing with Shape Detection, and Text Tool.

Quantifiable outcome

• 20,541,100 revisions tracked
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• DropboxcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 26 January 2015Dropbox acquired Pixelapse on January 26, 2015. The Pixelapse team joined Dropbox to bring design collaboration features to the broader Dropbox platform. Pixelapse as a standalone product was sunset on November 1, 2016, with features integrated into Dropbox.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Emerging players

• Figma: Figma emerged as a design collaboration platform with multiplayer editing capabilities, overlapping with Pixelapse's collaboration and version control value proposition. While Figma focused on creation, Pixelapse focused on file management—together they addressed adjacent parts of the design workflow.
• Sketch: Sketch was a primary design tool whose file format Pixelapse supported and managed. The two were complementary—Sketch for creation, Pixelapse for version control and collaboration—making them ecosystem peers.
• Zeplin: Zeplin addressed the designer-developer handoff problem with inspection tools (color, spacing, assets), directly competing with Pixelapse's Inspector tool suite for design-to-code workflows.
• InVision: InVision provided design collaboration and prototyping tools for design teams, overlapping with Pixelapse's collaboration, feedback, and handoff workflows. Both targeted creative teams needing structured review and iteration processes.
• Dribbble: Dribbble served as a designer community and portfolio platform where designers could share work, partially overlapping with Pixelapse's Open Design Movement and BOLD blog community-building efforts.

Broad incumbents

• Box: Box provides enterprise file storage, version control, and collaboration features—overlapping with Pixelapse's team collaboration and file management capabilities, particularly for enterprise creative teams.
• Dropbox: Dropbox acquired Pixelapse in 2015 and integrated its features (design previews, annotations, version history) into the core product. Dropbox competed with Pixelapse as a general-purpose file sync platform before the acquisition.
• Adobe Creative Cloud: Adobe Creative Cloud bundles design tools with built-in cloud sync, version history (e.g., Photoshop cloud documents), and collaboration features—directly competing with Pixelapse's core offering from the perspective of design file management and backup.

Direct peers

• GitHub: GitHub is the direct analog that inspired Pixelapse's positioning as 'GitHub for designers.' Both provide version control, collaboration, and repository-style workflows—but GitHub serves developers with code while Pixelapse targeted designers with visual files.
• Abstract: Abstract provided design version control and collaboration specifically for Sketch files, directly competing with Pixelapse in the design file management space. Both targeted design teams needing structured workflows for visual assets before being acquired (Abstract by Adobe in 2019).

Market position

Strengths3 records

Weaknesses3 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/pixelapse
• Facebookfacebook.com/Pixelapse
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/pixelapse

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Pixelapse