Shutterstock Acquires Splash Celebrity News Agency

#industry #news #acquisition #industrynews #photoacquisition #photoagency #shutterstock #splashnews #stockagency

Shutterstock Acquires Pond5 for $210 Million

#industry #news #acquisition #business #pond5 #shutterstock #stockagency #stockphotography #stockphotos #stockvideos

Getty Images to Become a Publicly Traded Company

Getty has announced that it will become a publicly-traded company. The company is valued at $4.8 billion and plans to list itself on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol "GETY."

Getty's process for becoming public is a bit convoluted. Getty itself isn't going public, but rather its newly-formed parent company is. Getty has entered into a business combination agreement with CC Neuberger Principal Holdings II -- a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company formed through a partnership between CC Capital and Neuberger Berman and is currently listed on the NYSE as "PRPB." Upon closing of the transaction, the newly forced parent company of Getty Images will become publicly traded and its current CEO, Craig Peters, will continue to lead the company.

The transaction was unanimously approved by both the CC Neuberger and Getty Images boards of directors.

"Businesses need to be in more places than ever before, and those places are more visual than ever before with increased emphasis on video," Peters says. "Today, people and businesses turn to Getty Images to convey their story. We are there for them whether they are a content creator trying to stand out on social media, a small business trying to reach new customers, or a Fortune 500 company. No matter who you are, or what your needs are, Getty Images offers a solution to help cut through the noise, grab attention, and create long-lasting connections."

Getty Images Co-Founder and Chairman Mark Getty says that taking the company public will allow them to more aggressively invest in more products and services.

"Today’s transaction is another milestone in the transformation of Getty Images," he says. "This will cement and enhance our position as the first-place people turn to discover, purchase, and share powerful visual content from the world’s best photographers and videographers."

Getty Images was founded in March of 1995 and is currently one of the preeminent visual marketplaces -- or stock photo agencies -- in the world. The company owns Getty Images, iStock, and Unsplash and serves over one million customers in nearly levery country in the world. Getty works with over 450,000 contributors and covers more than 160,000 sports, news, and entertainment events as well as maintains one of the largest privately-owned photographic archives in the world with over 135 million images.

#culture #news #getty #gettyimages #photoagency #publiclytraded #reorganization #stockagency #stockphotography

Shutterstock Acquires Web-Based Photo Editor PicMonkey for $110M

Shutterstock has announced the acquisition of PicMonkey, an online photo editing and design platform, for $110 million.

The cash deal to acquire the Seattle-based startup PicMonkey was finalized this week. PicMonkey was founded in 2021 and offers users web-based image editing and design tools, with access to thousands of templates, graphics, images, fonts, and more.

Shutterstock says the transaction expands the company's potential reach and taps into "the rapidly growing $8 billion market opportunity for creative software and design tools." Shutterstock also expects this deal will contribute about 3% to its annual revenues and add more than 200,000 new subscribers.

The expansion of Shutterstock products and services is based on a key element of the company's strategy to provide users with "a suite of solutions for the entire creative journey, regardless of experience or expertise level," according to Stan Pavlosky, Chief Executive Officer at Shutterstock.

"Content is at the core of Shutterstock’s offering, and selecting an asset is just one step of the creative process," he explains.

The acquisition will allow Shutterstock to incorporate what it describes as PicMonkey's easy-to-use design and editing tools, collaboration features across teams, and robust library of pre-designed templates to further deliver on what the company envisions for its customers -- easy access to professional and creative content that doesn't require its users to have prior knowledge or formal training. PicMonkey is also available as a free app on both Google Play and Apple App Store.

As Shutterstock's library of royalty-free stock photos will become integrated within PicMonkey design workflow, this process will replace Unsplash and Stock by Getty images which have been available to users prior to the acquisition. At the time of publication, Shutterstock has over 1.8 million contributors and more than 380 million images and more than 22 million video clips available.

This deal follows Shutterstock's acquisition of TurboSquid -- a 3D-render stock agency -- earlier this year which cost the company $75 million. TurboSquid and now PicMonkey are the latest to be added to Shutterstock's extensive portfolio which also includes Offset, a high-end image collection, Shutterstock Studios, an end-to-end custom creative shop, Premium Beat, a royalty-free music library, Shutterstock Editorial, a source of editorial images and videos for the world's media, Amper Music, an AI-driven music platform, and Bigstock -- a value-oriented stock media offering.

#industry #news #websites #acquisition #picmonkey #shutterstock #stock #stockagency #stockimages #stockphoto #stockphotoagency #stockphotolibrary