Google has invested in e-commerce photo firm Pixazza in conjunction with August Capital and CMEA Capital, it has emerged.

The three companies put in $5.75 million (£3.9 million) of Series A financing in total, with other individual investors including Facebook chief financial officer Gideon Yu and ex-eBay chief operating officer Maynard Webb.

Pixazza offers a service whereby users upload photos that can be hovered over with the mouse cursor to bring up more information and see related products, as well as clicked on to be taken to the seller's website.

It was founded last year by chief technology officer James Everingham, who then went on to hire a group of former Netscape technical experts to work on the site.

Pixazza's web service has been in testing since November last year and is live on a number of sites, with more in a range of specific sectors to be added in due course.

Bob Lisbonne, chief executive of Pixazza, said: "Pixazza hopes to do for images what Google's AdSense did for web pages.

"We are excited about the potential our technology holds for delivering an engaging user experience that creates incremental revenue for web publishers."

Pixazza's advertisers include Amazon, BlueFly, eLuxury, Macy's, Shopbop and Zappos.