500px, one of the world’s leading online visual creative communities, announced Monday, February 26th that it has been acquired by Visual China Group (VCG), the world’s third-largest visual content provider and a longtime investor in 500px.
The acquisition underscores the significance of the growing photography community space, and solidifies 500px and VCG as world-class players in the photography industry. By joining forces with VCG, 500px is able to accelerate innovation, and further inspire, connect, and reward millions of like-minded creatives for their high-quality work.
“As one of the largest visual-content-licensing companies in the world, VCG has always been excited by the passion of the 500px community,” said Amy Jun Liang, Chief Executive Officer of VCG. “This acquisition is in line with VCG’s strategy to build a world-class photography ecosystem that delivers high-quality images. By integrating our learnings and resources across both 500px.com and 500px.me, we will further enrich our content creation, technology expertise, product offering, and continue to deliver the best service and experience to our millions of visual creatives.”
Post-acquisition, both companies will provide improved SaaS (Software as a Service) services relating to big data, AI, and blockchain technologies to visual creatives around the world. Additionally, VCG will leverage its strong client base and broad distribution channels to help accelerate the growth of 500px’s visual-content licensing and custom photography services.
Prior to the acquisition, 500px was venture-backed by VCG, Andreessen Horowitz, and ff Venture Capital. In 2015, VCG led 500px’s Series B round and both parties entered a joint venture to provide localized services to photographers in China by launching 500px.me.
About 500px
500px is one of the leading online visual creative communities in the world, founded in 2009 and based in Toronto. With more than 13 million professional and hobbyist photographers from over 195 countries, the 500px community has produced over 120 million high-quality images since its inception. 500px was recently named one of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50, and has worked with esteemed global brands like Google, Airbnb, Sony and Lonely Planet.
About VCG
Visual China Group, a public company in China (stock code 000681), is among the top image licensing companies in the world. It is the go-to choice for creative and media professionals in China, and an award-winning leader in copyright protection. Beginning with its strategic investment in 500px in 2015 and the acquisition of Corbis in 2016, VCG, together with its global strategic partner, aims to develop a global photography ecosystem focusing on visual content creation and monetization to better serve photographers, as well as creative and media professionals around the world.
via: press release 500px.
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