Shutterstock acquires PicMonkey, leading creative design platform

Cristina Blanaru Business, Digital & Media, Marketing

Shutterstock announced the acquisition of PicMonkey, a leading online graphic design and image editing platform that enables creators of any skill level to design high-quality visual assets — from presentations, advertisements and logos, to business cards and banners — for an array of use cases, including digital marketing, advertising, and social media posts.

Founded in 2012, PicMonkey allows creators to access thousands of templates, graphics and fonts, with tips and tutorials for producing sophisticated visual designs with an editorial look and feel for a diverse array of channels. This acquisition builds upon Shutterstock’s strategy to expand its offering to small businesses, by providing additional tools to non-professionals for elevating their visual content across a variety of platforms.

“Content is at the core of Shutterstock’s offering, and selecting an asset is just one step of the creative process. A key element of Shutterstock’s strategy and vision is providing a suite of solutions for the entire creative journey, regardless of experience or expertise level,” said Stan Pavlovsky, Chief Executive Officer at Shutterstock. “PicMonkey’s easy-to-use design and editing tools, collaboration features across teams, and robust library of pre-designed templates makes professional publishing assets accessible at scale to anyone, and is expected to allow Shutterstock to enhance and accelerate the delivery of our vision for our customers around the world.”

The acquisition of PicMonkey is an important element of Shutterstock’s workflow solutions, empowering creatives, business owners and marketers to design with ease. Key features of the PicMonkey tool includes photo editing, effects, touch-up tools, brand kits, cloud storage video, animations, and multi-page for creators, solopreneurs, social marketers, marketing professionals, pro designers and casual creatives. These design and editing features represent a natural extension of Shutterstock’s content offering, and on a combined basis, will enable the delivery of a more unified customer experience across the creation journey.

Transaction Highlights:

  • Complements Shutterstock’s content subscriptions with easy-to-use image and video design tools
  • Expands Shutterstock’s audience reach and addressable market by extending into the rapidly growing $8 billion market opportunity for creative software and design tools
  • Expected to contribute approximately 3% to Shutterstock’s annual revenues and to add more than 200,000 new subscribers
  • Consideration for the transaction consists of $110 million of cash paid at closing and the acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive to Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income

CapM Advisors acted as financial advisor, and Sheppard Mullin acted as legal advisor to Shutterstock. Lightning Partners acted as financial advisor, and Latham & Watkins acted as legal advisor to PicMonkey.