Part of the Inmagine Group with the following core businesses:(www.123rf.com, www.stockunlimited.com, www.designs.net, www.inamagine.com)
They sell stock imagery, footage, audio, vectors, services. They have even produced an album called Lumiere . The are planning to merge things together seamlessly to allow cross-selling and up-selling. Following that, they will introduce more integrated offerings across the entire suite of creative resources, i.e. academy/training resources
Headquarters
They operate in 40+ countries, with an operational HQ in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where they have about a third of the global headcount of 500+ people working. They have offices in US, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, South Korea, China, Indonesia, Singapore and more
Competitors
Shutterstock, iStock, Fotolia are our main competitors. Shutterstock is listed on NYSE, iStock is owned by Getty, and Fotolia was acquired by Adobe.
Strengths
They are localized across the countries they operate in.
They are the only of the top 4 which is 100% owner-owned and this gives them a lot of flexibility in terms of how to run the organisation and new businesses
They tend to be price leaders vs competitors such as Shutterstock because the relatively lower cost base allows them to position ourselves differently
They also have corporate offerings such as Corporate Plus which simplify account and asset management for large corporate clients. With credits and subscriptions, customers pay upfront in general
Founders
Andy Sitt, Chairman, leads the Inmagine Group with a visionary foresight to build the world’s most creative and community-centric ecosystem.
He is also a serial bootstrap entrepreneur, with 19 years of in-depth knowledge in building e-commerce businesses centered on creative content. The MBA graduate from the University of Hull had spent his earlier years in the UK working as the financial controller of Digital Vision, where he saw the opportunity to replicate the stock photography business in Malaysia, his homeland. He founded Inmagine, a premium stock photo library in 2000 and grew the business internationally.
In 2005, he seized the opportunity to start 123RF, a microstock library, when the industry shifted focus towards using more images at a lower price point. 123RF is now Asia’s largest crowdsourced stock content library. Andy ventured further, disrupting the creative industry by launching StockUnlimited, Designs.net and EasyDesign. He currently invests in innovative startups and oversees his dynamic team of 500 FTEs over 20 countries in building new business opportunities and accelerating growth at a global level.
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Stephanie Sitt, CEO, currently focuses on sales and marketing efforts for the Group.
She co-founded Inmagine in year 2000 while pursuing her Bachelor of Business in Marketing. With minimal funding, Stephanie has managed to secure most of the creative content from hundreds of imagery suppliers around the world, as well as numerous enterprise deals for Inmagine, which resulted in substantial YoY growth to the company.
Stephanie has led, strategized and drove global sales, marketing, operations, partnerships and establishments across Asia, Europe and the U.S. She has also initiated and implemented a 24/7 customer support service, and set up various sales offices to address local needs, establishing excellent customer service globally.
History
It started at a small rented condo with less than $30k in capital. They were glad to have a computer, phone and internet access. The first clients were found from manual directories.
They also met some of the local banks and VCs to request funding but it failed. No one saw or understood the opportunity, or no one wanted to take that risk with them.
We were mainly doing image editing and sales in mid 2000. Image Editor as we
Zero- 100% bootsrapped. No one was willing to fund the business as investors and banks didn’t really understand technology businesses.
It was also impossible to get loans from banks and government agencies
It was rare for an Asian company to succeed so they positioned themselves as an American company. Online marketing enabled them to become the juggernaut they are today.
See more about them here: