Unsplash has announced that as of today it is being acquired by Getty Images. In a blog post, Unsplash’s founder Mikael Cho says that it will continue to operate as a standalone brand inside of Getty and that the free content model won’t be changing.
The entire Unsplash team will be staying and building Unsplash in the direction its has always been. The main difference now is Unsplash will have access to the resources and experience of Getty Images to help accelerate its plans to create the world’s most useful visual asset library.
In 2016, we first met the Getty Images team. We weren’t sure they would see the world the same way we did give their business was largely built on licensing. Over years of conversations, however, we learned about the level of respect they had for the Unsplash community and the rights of creators to choose how and where their imagery is made available. Craig Peters, Getty Images CEO, told me, “We have so much admiration for Unsplash. What you’re doing for creativity and what you’ve built is incredible.”
It also became clear we shared a similar view of the world. The impact of imagery has never been greater and will only become greater in the future. And we both aim to push that impact further than anyone has ever done before.
After interacting with the team at Getty Images more and better understanding their long-term vision, we realized we shared so much alignment that going at this together could be much more impactful than going at it separately.
What’s to come
In the last year, Unsplash passed two billion image downloads (and just passed three billion), Unsplash for Brands tripled in size and recently launched Unsplash Hire.
In partnership with Getty Images, Unsplash will be accelerating its plans on each of these. The company has identified ways we can grow faster together, collaborate more with brands, and create many more opportunities for creative talent.
We’ll be hiring and adding resources to bring each of these parts of Unsplash to full bloom much quicker than we could have done alone.
So yes, we are excited about what’s to come. It’s been nearly eight years since Unsplash began as a Tumblr blog with ten images. Since then, Unsplash grew into something greater than we ever could have imagined.
There are now over two million high quality, high-resolution images on Unsplash that have been contributed by people from every country. The number of creative works that have been enabled by these visuals is in the billions. It’s impossible to estimate the collective impact but from what we’ve seen and the stories we’ve heard, images on Unsplash are fundamental to helping so many people make positive things happen.
It’s hard to say the Unsplash community merely created a dent in the universe. It feels more like you’ve helped create an entirely new universe.
With the added resources and support, we’re looking forward to creating so much more for you and with you.
Although specific terms of this acquisition were not disclosed, Getty Images says it’s a cash deal that is set to close at the end of the month.
