Pond5, Shutterstock’s rival in the digital media and video world, has today announced that the company has closed a $61 million round of funding led by Accel Partners and Stripes Group.
According to CrunchBase, this is Pond5’s second round of funding after securing a $500k seed round back in 2008.
Launched in 2006, Pond5 offers an alternative to Shutterstock with a user-driven marketplace for stock video, music, photos, special effects, Adobe AfterEffects, etc. The Pond5 model asks media creators to upload their own work and set their own prices, so control is left almost entirely in the hands of the buyers and sellers. Pond5 simply provides the venue.
Here’s what Pond5 CEO Tom Bennett had to tell TechCrunch about the round:
We are profitable, and part of the reason we were able to hold off on another financing round up until now is because we chose to grow more slowly in a way that is more robust and organic. With regards to any future financings, we haven’t made a determination one way or another whether we’ll go down that path, but we decided a long time ago that at all points in time we would have the option of a sustainable, profitable business that doesn’t require external funding.
Pond5 now accounts for more than 15 million media clips from 30,000 artists in 127 different countries, and according to the company, Pond5’s 2.7 million videos comprise the largest royalty-free video collection on the web.
In terms of the business, the company is home to around 70 employees distributed between the New York headquarters and an office in Prague. With the funding, Pond5 plans to build out the product, double the staff, add more content, and marketing.
If you want to learn more about Pond5, check out the website here.