New York based stock media marketplace, Pond5, announced yesterday that it has raised $61 million in equity financing from Accel Partners and Stripes Group. The funding is the first institutional investment for the company and will be used for the company’s global growth, hiring and product development.
Pond5 is a company that runs an online marketplace for stock video footage, photos, audio and other snippets needed to create media projects. Pond5 pays out 50% of sales to artists who upload their media to the website, a competitor to Shutterstock who pays 20-30%.
“Our mission since day one has been to build the world’s most vibrant, artist-friendly marketplace for creativity,” said Pond5 CEO and co-founder Tom Bennett. “We thought very carefully about the kind of partners we wanted to joins us, and we couldn’t be more excited to team up with Accel and Stripes for the next phase of our adventure.”
Pond5 now has more than 15 million media clips from 30,000 artists in 127 different countries and the company’s 2.7 million video compose the largest royalty-free video collection on the Web. If you’ve ever seen Iron Man, Dallas Buyers Club, Thor or Pirates of the Caribbean, then you’ve probably seen a Pond5 clip.
Watch the video above as music producer and film director Ryan Lewis of Macklemore fame, an avid user of the site, talks about why Pond5 is the most vibrant media marketplace.
Pond5 is based in New York, with offices in Geneva, Switzerland and Prague. Since its founding in 2006, the company has been doubling it sales annually. In 2013, Pond5 acquired Pixmac, an international network of stock photos sites based in Czech Republic. It now employs 70 people globally.
Meet the Investors
Accel Partners
Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has been teaming up with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. With offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London and Bangalore, Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies. For more information visit www.accel.com.
Stripes Group
Stripes Group is a leading equity firm based in New York City that invests in Internet, Digital Media, Software and Branded Consumer Products businesses. Stripes Group partners with profitable, market-leading companies with exceptional growth. For more information visit www.stripesgroup.com.
