Last Thursday Shutterstock went public under the ticker SSTK, becoming the first NY-based tech company to IPO since 2010.
The company sold 4.5 million shares of common stock at $17 per share on the NYSE, and surged 27 percent over the day closing at $21.66. Today, the stock closed at$23.08. It’s been what some (and not others) are calling a picture perfect IPO, and to celebrate, CEO and founder Jon Oringer rang the bell to start trading this morning at the New York Stock Exchange.
After almost a week to let it stew, the CEO seems ready to move forward. “It isn’t about this moment,” said Oringer. “We have been at this for nine years, and I’m looking at the next nine years.” Which can only lead into video.
For many of us, the world is becoming much more imagery-based than anything else. Video games, pictures, video — these things are fundamental to the way we consume information.
Oringer explained that when Shutterstock first launched, the DSLR had just dipped below $1,000, and has since become more and more accessible to large masses of people.
“It takes a lot of people to use these cameras over and over again, to start to get better and better at what they do and what they’re creating. It happens over time, [...] we can see the progression of our photographers get better and better, and we’d like to see that with video, too.”
Oringer claims that 70 million businesses could use their content. “All businesses need images to sell their products and services,” he said. The key is that he’s operating in the in-between space, cheaper than traditional players but a more comprehensive library than the base-level offerings.
Shutterstock is a leading global provider of high-quality licensed photographs, vectors, illustrations and videos to businesses, marketing agencies and media organizations around the world. Shutterstock works closely with its growing contributor community of photographers, videographers, illustrators and designers to curate a global marketplace for royalty-free imagery. Shutterstock adds tens of thousands of rights-cleared images each week, and with more than 19 million images currently available, the company recently celebrated its 200-millionth image download.
Jon Oringer is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of the popular microstock photography site Shutterstock. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Math and Computer Science from Stony Brook University, and completed his Master’s degree in Computer Science at Columbia University. Oringer pioneered the subscription based microstock photography business model when he created Shutterstock in 2003. Jon Oringer originally founded the company to sell his own images, but soon recognized that his work alone would not satisfy his...
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