Startup's photo, video-sharing app breaks new ground

To the amusement of passersby, Color CEO Bill Nguyen works in a bathtub in a window at the startup's headquarters in Silicon Valley. (Credit: Los Angeles Times)

Silicon Valley startup Color Labs released a new smartphone app yesterday that lets people nearby share photos, videos and text messages in real time.

Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm that backed Google and Apple, recently invested $25 million in Color. Sequoia "told us that every ten years or so a company and a marketplace and an opportunity come together that's transformative," Color chief executive Bill Nguyen said. "They told us, 'not since Google have we seen this."

"No other app connects people like Color does," says Sequoia partner Douglas Leone.

Nguyen sold his last startup, streaming music service Lala, to Apple.