Getty Images, a world leader in visual communications, and Unsplash, the preeminent image platform for global creators, today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Getty Images will acquire Unsplash. Getty Images will fund the transaction from existing cash balances and the transaction is expected to close at the close of the month.
With more than 100 million images downloaded every month the Unsplash platform powers the creativity of tens of millions of users via the Unsplash website and thousands of partner integrations through the Unsplash API.
Getty Images powers the world’s corporate and media communications through more than 425 million images and videos from the world’s top visual experts, award-winning content creators, producers, partners, the world’s deepest digital archive of historic photography, and world-class support, technology and capabilities.
Unsplash was first introduced in the year 2013 as a simple Tumbler blog with many free photos which users can download and since then it has become a popular website where photographers can upload HD resolution images to the platform. Unsplash encourages downloading such images and you can even use these images for any purposes without any ascription. However, this platform was a bit controversial for some photographers because of the input of lower pay rate of photographers and the level of photography as well; therefore it was being acquired by Getty images. Both Getty images and Unsplash has announced this acquisition on their websites. Many people were thinking that Unsplash will have to change its image policy but according to the founder, this acquisition is not made to shut down this company, rather an entire team of Unsplash will continue to work from their respective positions in the company.
This main change Unsplash will get is broader experience and resource of Getty images which can help a lot to carry out new plans to create the world’s most valuable visual asset library. Together they can find many ways to grow faster and they can even collaborate with many brands and they can give more chances to the creative talent as Getty images have more than 425 million paid photos and video from world’s top visual professionals, award-winning creators, and there are almost 2 million photos on Unsplash which are free of cost due to which it has become controversial because many people think that it is ruining the industry, but, still, many creators find Unsplash useful. Cho said that Unsplash and Getty were having a discussion with each other since the year 2016 and Unsplash was not even confirmed that Getty will acquire the business after understanding our nature of business. But many things have changed with the time.