Shutterstock has raised $76.5 million by selling 4.5 million shares at $17 each. This was above the expected price range of between $13 and $15 per share. Today, the stock is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SSTK” at $22 per share.
Chief Executive Jonathan Oringer, who founded Shutterstock in 2003, will continue to hold about 57% and Insight Venture Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm will hold 21% of the company. The company has a market capitalization of $613.8 million.
Shutterstock has 550,000 customers who spent a total of $120.2 million with the company in 2011. Thus, the average customer spent about $219 during the year. The company recorded revenue of $78.1 million for the first 6 months of 2012 and is on track to do in excess of $150 million this year.
According to Oringer the company pays out about 30% of revenue to image creators. Shutterstock has 224 employees and a net income per employee of $536,924.
One advantage Shutterstock has over its competition is the data generated by customer activity on the site. To date the company has had more that 250 million downloads. Each time a customer enters a keyword or chooses an image that data is used to engineer and tweak the algorithm in order to deliver more targeted search returns to the next customer. Other microstock and traditional RM and RF distributors with many fewer transactions may not be able to deliver such targeted results.
Oringer plans to use the money raised to expand into other markets, particularly international, and to grow the video side of the business.