Light Crafts Appoints Georges Van Hoegaerden Chief Executive Officer, Closes New Investment Round

Digital media expert to drive market adoption of LightZone photo-editing software

Palo Alto, CA (PRWEB) April 9, 2007 -- Light Crafts, creators of LightZone photo-editing software, today announced the appointment of Georges van Hoegaerden to the position of chief executive officer and member of its board of directors. A seasoned executive with deep experience in all aspects of digital media, particularly digital photography, Mr. van Hoegaerden joins the company to refine the product strategy, accelerate growth and execute on the promise of LightZone -- to simplify photo-editing for the millions underserved by existing products. The Company also announced that it had closed a new funding round.

"We are pleased to add an executive of Georges' caliber to the Light Crafts team," said Fabio Riccardi, chief technology officer and chairman of the board of Light Crafts. "His company-building experience and domain expertise in photography make him the perfect choice to build on our existing market acceptance and take the company to the next level."

As the premier photo editing software for both amateur and professional photographers, LightZone empowers users to edit photographs the way they shoot them -- visually. Unlike traditional photo-editing software, LightZone enables users to retouch and enhance photos in a simple and natural way, without the need to learn a new editing language or mathematical representations that have no meaning to most people.

"While relatively young, the digital photography market is already experiencing explosive growth. As massive numbers of consumers continue to purchase digital cameras, the requirements for photo-editing software change dramatically and legacy products no longer fit the bill," said Mr. van Hoegaerden. "Light Crafts raises the bar for photo-editing software functionality, while staying true to the language of photography. Our new funding round enables us to execute on our innovative product roadmap to fundamentally change the photo-editing market."

Mr. van Hoegaerden joined Light Crafts in February 2007. For nine years, he was managing director of The Venture Company, a venture catalyst he founded to provide strategic and operational services to technology companies. The Venture Company (venturecompany.com) worked with start-ups, such as OuterBay Technologies (sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2006), video communications company immergo and emerging ventures within larger companies, such as Symantec and HP.

Mr. van Hoegaerden also served as a venture partner at Big Bang Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm. Previously, he worked as a new media venture catalyst at Oracle Corporation in both the U.S. and Europe.

About Light Crafts
Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Light Crafts is the expert in photo-editing software. LightZone, the essential photo-editing application, enables photographers of all experience levels to effectively and efficiently edit digital images--visually. LightZone's patented digital signal processing technology powers a suite of intelligent tools that simplifies photo editing while increasing photographer control. For more information about Light Crafts, please visit our website, www.LightCrafts.com.

###