If your app caters to the fashion industry, it can only help if one of the world’s most famous models invests in your company and features your product on her TV show.

Philippe LeBlanc certainly found that out last Thursday when the U.S. reality show America’s Next Top Model featured his company Flixel, which has developed an app for cinemagraphs — that is, digital photographs that highlight one thing by having it move. The show’s producer, former supermodel Tyra Banks, sought out Flixel last September and was so impressed that she became an investor.

Flixel, which works on Apple products and will soon be released on other platforms, is an especially powerful medium for the fashion industry, as a blowing gown in a cinemagraph can highlight the wardrobe. The product is now a fixture on America’s Next Top Model, which is broadcast in more than 180 countries, and LeBlanc said the producers have done about 100 model shoots using its technology. These will be featured in the show as it continues to air.

 “I can’t think of another television show that has integrated an application in such a way,” said LeBlanc in a phone interview this week. “If this were to become successful, it could be a model for apps.”

LeBlanc founded Flixel in Moncton less than two years ago, and like most startups, found the first year a tortuous grind.

It secured two rounds of investment from Atlantic Canadian angels totalling $750,000, and a $250,000 seed investment from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, BDC Venture Capital and Mantella Venture Partners. But it could not find enough iOS developers (developers working on the Apple platform) in Atlantic Canada, so LeBlanc had to move to Toronto.

His development problem solved, it was difficult to find the best path to market. He had originally hoped for a social media product that would allow people to post their own cinemagraphs, but it was difficult to monetize such a plan. So the team had to move upmarket, and the fashion industry seemed a natural fit. But it is not an easy market to enter.

 “It hasn’t all been glitz and glamour,” said LeBlanc. “We faced the end many times and we were always able to figure out a way to keep surviving and looking around the corner and find something promising.

 “When Tyra called, everything was stretched.”

LeBlanc is barred from disclosing how much Banks’s investment company, Fierce Capital, LLC, has put into the company but said Flixel has raised more than $2 million in total.

With 11 employees, Flixel is now headquartered in Toronto, where its development team is based, and its service business has an office in Los Angeles. Both the app (which is available on Apple’s  AppStore) and the service business (which caters to professional photographers and the fashion industry) are generating revenue, and LeBlanc hopes the business will be self-sustaining by the end of the year.

As well as the work with Tyra Banks, the service business is gaining traction in the fashion world. The U.S. department store chain Macy’s, for example, is using Flixel to promote its new Marilyn Monroe collection.

 “We’re viewing it like Instagram,” said Calvin Milbury, CEO of the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, referring to the photo-based social media company that Facebook bought for $1 billion. “If we can get the user adoption, we believe there’s a great potential to sell the company.”

LeBlanc won’t rule out some day having an office and team back in Atlantic Canada. “I still feel that this is an Atlantic Canadian success story since we started there and we received a big chunk of our funding from the region.”