Seattle's ImageKind has raised $2.56 million in a first round of capital, reeling in the money from giant German book publisher Holtzbrinck and Silicon Valley venture capital firm Crosslink Capital.

(Correction: Amazon.com is not an investor, as I first reported here)

Seattle angel investors -- including former Expedia Chief Executive Erik Blachford, PhotoDisc co-founder Tom Hughes and Second Avenue Partners co-founder Nick Hanauer -- also participated. As did the European Founders Fund, the venture firm created by the German brothers who sold Alando.de to eBay in 1999.

ImageKind Chief Executive Kelly Smith said the money will be used to develop new services and to expand overseas.

Launched last July, ImageKind attracts about 50,000 page views per day from people who visit the site to buy or sell original artwork. Photographers and artists upload digital prints to the site, setting the price for the artwork beyond a base price from ImageKind for printing and paper costs.

Thousands of images have been uploaded, from cityscapes of Paris to nature shots of sunflowers to photographs of tattoos. The printing costs range from about $7 to more than $70, depending upon the type of paper used. Those who buy a print also can choose to have them framed for additional costs.

"Our premise was pretty simple, basically build the world's most effective platform for discovery, selling and shopping of original or contemporary artwork," said Smith.

Artists are selling about 20 to 30 images every day through ImageKind, with Smith saying that 27 percent are selected for framing. The print production occurs at the company's offices in Pioneer Square, while the framing is handled in Portland. Smith said profit margins on framing are quite high, with additional products to be unveiled later this year.

The big gorilla in the market is Art.com, but Smith said ImageKind is different because it is focusing on artwork submitted by individuals rather than established artists.

Smith did not actively court investors for the venture round, saying he did not create a PowerPoint presentation or make any outbound solicitation calls. He chronicled part of the experience on his blog.

"I am sure that is not normal and not typical," said Smith. "But fundraising can be incredibly distracting for a startup CEO and I just said 'I am going to take 90 percent of these cycles and keep it focused on the product and see what happens.' The reason I chose to do that is that I know, as I have gotten closer to venture capitalists as friends and colleagues, that they are actively out there looking for good products and good platforms. If you are doing your job and have built a good product, people find you. And that is exactly what happened."

ImageKind employees 16 people, but not much work was getting done last Friday. To celebrate the funding round, the company gathered at Temple Billiards in Pioneer Square for beers and pizza.