Envato Expands into North America with Placeit Acquisition

Envato has grown its presence in North America, with the acquisition of one of the web’s fastest-growing digital mockup and templates tools, Placeit.

Purchased for an undisclosed amount, the Mexico-based company adds to Envato’s globally renowned creative community, providing a series of responsive mockups, smart design templates and maker tools for designers of all skill levels.

Headquartered in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city and the country’s well regarded tech hub, Placeit has grown rapidly since its inception in 2012, with more than seven million templates sold and doubling in size in the last 12 months.

The company’s most recently recorded Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) was over $3M USD. Envato’s current subscription business Envato Elements has an ARR of $21M, and grew over 100% in the last year.

Placeit counts companies such as Google, Facebook and Oracle as among its more than 55,000 regular paying customers, with more than 87% of these customers coming from outside Mexico each month, reflecting the global footprint it has.

The platform currently allows users with no previous design experience to make everything from on-trend logos and branding kits for everything from restaurants to sporting clubs, through to t-shirt design templates, social media videos, high-resolution iPhone and apparel mockups and more.

Users can do all of this very simply from their browser, without the need to purchase and learn how to use specialist design and creative software.

Envato founder and CEO Collis Ta’eed said that the acquisition of Placeit was an exciting one.

“Placeit extends the Envato offering in a big way. We’ve made our mark in the world helping creative professionals get inspired, work faster, and level up what they do for clients.”“With Placeit we’re opening up Envato’s creative magic to absolutely anyone. Whether it’s an entrepreneur just getting started, a marketer working on their own, or just a pro user who doesn’t want the hassle of opening Photoshop - Placeit is just plain fun and simple to use.”

“My ‘aha’ moment with Placeit was sitting down with my kids to make a logo for their basketball team. Watching a seven year old make something that I, as a professional designer, liked was pretty special, and really solidified to me what an opportunity Placeit has to connect with a whole different design audience. Seeing something come to life that simply was not possible before is why I love working in the tech industry.” concluded Mr Ta’eed.

Placeit founder Navid Safabakhsh said he looking forward to the company becoming an integral part of Envato’s global creative community.

“The origin story for Placeit is very similar to the one Envato has; we came up with an online, smart solution to a very particular set of problems that many digital creatives face around the world today, anchored by hard-working local tech talent.”

“In building a series of easy-to-use and on-trend maker tools, we’ve seen first hand just how much we’ve been able to empower creatives of all skill levels around the globe to complete their projects faster, and with better outcomes. We think it’s a perfect match for Envato, one that builds on the strengths of both companies.”

The upgraded Placeit by Envato platform officially went live last week.

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