Shutterstock’s acquisition of 3D marketplace Turbo Squid is significant for a few reasons, some of which might not be obvious. The first and well-understood purchase trigger is that the microstock company is under pressure to expand its offering horizontally. There is a known ceiling to the paid licensed still imagesContinue Reading
Remember Framen? This German startup’s CEO, Dimitri Gärtner, did a Show & Tell presentation at Visual 1st two years ago, showing his company’s digital frame photo viewing solutions. To my surprise, I learned a few days before Christmas that a company no less than Axel Springer had just acquired theContinue Reading
Facebook’s acquisition of the Gif search engine Giphy proves, once again, that whoever controls visual content also controls audiences.Continue Reading
It made a giant noise as it caught everyone by surprise — $230 million investment in a company providing photo services. After Adobe’s $800 million purchase of French microstock photo company Fotolia, Pond 5’s $64 million investment and Shutterstock’s $76.5 million IPO, it is the highest figures ever seen investedContinue Reading
Let’s say your company has developed very strong expertise that could be applied to other use cases or markets than those you’ve successfully pursued. That makes it very tempting to expand. However, while some companies do this successfully, a large number of others learn through the school of hard knocksContinue Reading
Investors from Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, Lux Capital, Glasswing Ventures, Imagination Capital, B Capital Group, FirstMark Capital, True Ventures, Eniac and we at LDV Capital share insights. Visual technologies were once considered cute, niche & science fiction. With more visual technology companies like Pinterest and Zoom going public, the worldContinue Reading
The European Directive on Copyright is passed, and along with it, the infamous “Article 13”, now Article 17 in the latest document. However, what will it mean for photo agencies and independent photographers?Continue Reading
While Google decision to display image rights information is an immense improvement that should be celebrated ( and followed) by every photo creator in the world, it is not without financial afterthoughts. Continue Reading
It’s not by lack of topics ( there are many). Nor is it by lack of interest. It’s just a lack of time. Sometimes there are not enough hours in the day and if something has to be sacrificed, unfortunately, it is this blog. However, the call is sometimes too strongContinue Reading
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Global Blockchain Forum and immersing myself in this for me mostly new world of ICO seekers, self-proclaimed investors, blockchain developers, VCs suffering from FOMO, and libertarians and anarchists from all over the world for which the prime method of communication is Telegram – because you never knowContinue Reading