)
Melbourne-based creative assets firm Envato, founded by Australian rich listers Cyan and Collis Ta’eed, has announced it will be acquired by royalty-free image website Shutterstock (NYSE: SSTK) in an all-cash deal worth US$245 million ($372 million).
Founded in 2006 by the husband-and-wife duo, Envato allows users to access creative assets like stock photos, graphic design templates, audio and fonts, as well as WordPress themes and codes.
The tech firm also operates an unlimited subscription service called Envato Elements, which offers unlimited downloads of stock videos, royalty-free music, photos, and graphics, as well as a web-based product mockup and design tool called PlaceIt, and free stock photography and video asset sites Reshot and Mixkit.
Clients on the company roster include tech and retail giants like Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Nike, and Walmart.
"Since its humble beginnings in a Sydney garage, Envato has generated more than $1.3 billion in earnings for its author community and scaled to 650,000 subscribers. I feel an immense sense of pride in the team for achieving this global scale as an independent business," Envato CEO Hichame Assi said.
"As we enter this next chapter, we remain laser focused on empowering the creative community to thrive and excited to achieve this shared goal with Shutterstock."
Former CEO and co-founder Collis Ta'eed expressed his gratitude to the community stating that he is "profoundly grateful to all those who played a part, big or small, in our collective story."
"I'll be cheering from the sidelines, confident there is a shared dedication to innovation and creativity, as well as a continued commitment to our values,” Ta'eed added.
Based in New York, New York, Shutterstock is one of the world’s largest stock photography and footage providers. The company, which has a market capitalisation of US$1.48 billion ($2.2 billion) has also recently signed deals with tech firms Meta, Google, Amazon and Apple to use hundreds of millions of images, videos and music files in its library to train AI models.
The acquisition of Envato will more than double Shutterstock’s subscriber base to 1.15 million. Shutterstock's content library will also be bolstered to 10 million images, 6 million videos, 1 million audio clips, 500,000 templates and 200,000 graphics and fonts.
The deal will also diversify Shutterstock’s offering to include new content such as code and web themes, product mock-ups, and fonts and templates for software like Powerpoint, Keynote and WordPress.
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to customary closing conditions.
"We're thrilled about this transaction and looking forward to welcoming the Envato team to Shutterstock," said Shutterstock CEO Paul Hennessy.
"Envato is perfectly positioned to serve a growing customer need for an unlimited multi-asset subscription to a library of creative content, with an emphasis on videos, audio, graphics, fonts and templates.
“By extending our reach to faster growing audiences and into additional content types, this acquisition will help Shutterstock fulfill its mission of connecting customers to the content they need, wherever they are so they can create, build and share their next big idea."
)
)
)
)
)
