https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shutterstock-acquires-picmonkey-a-leading-creative-design-platform-301369908.html

From what I've read, it seems Canva is the market leader in the online design-with-templates space and PicMonkey is just another player.

PicMonkey was using Unsplash and iStock as a partner for images and illustrations, but that's ending Sept 14th (Shutterstock takes its place).

Here's what PicMonkey is telling their users about the buyout:

https://www.picmonkey.com/help/accounts-and-billing/all-about-picmonkey-and-shutterstock/picmonkey-and-shutterstock

If you're curious about the (many) online design tool subscriptions currently out there, here are a couple of alternatives-to-Canva articles:

https://blog.dailylogochallenge.com/canva-vs-competition/
https://paperform.co/blog/canva-alternatives/

From the contributor's point of view, more buyers could be a very good thing, but for many of these design services, the royalty per download is small. It's also not clear that this is expanding the pool of buyers; it may be Shutterstock wants to be sure it doesn't lose buyers to one of the other design tools.

Shutterstock's stock (SSTK) closed down today but jumped in after-hours trading. No clue what that's about.

For some reason I saw "PigMonkey" Maybe that could be their new name? LOL
Anyways, thanks for the info.  To me over all this company merger is more like "PacMan" gobbling up more pellets to make more of a monopoly for its self.

Quote from: k_t_g on September 08, 2021, 05:48
For some reason I saw "PigMonkey" Maybe that could be their new name? LOL
Anyways, thanks for the info.  To me over all this company merger is more like "PacMan" gobbling up more pellets to make more of a monopoly for its self.

That was my first thought. Easier to buy competition or new markets than copy or create something. If they could, SS would start a version of Wirestock which would be an absurdity, but just another way to dominate the market. Stockpigs 

On a somewhat related note...

Canva announced an additional round of investment, bringing its theoretical valuation to $40b and they project $1b in revenue by the end of this year. Possibly Shutterstock's interest in PicMonkey was a consequence of viewing Canva as a threat

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/14/canva-raises-200-million-at-a-40-billion-valuation/?tpcc=ECTW2020
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58567722

Interesting note that of the total 60 million monthly active users, only about half a million "teams" are paying for the service "...in some capacity"