ImageX.com Agrees to Acquire Creativepro.com to Become the Most Comprehensive E-Marketplace for the Graphic Arts Industry
Online Workflow Leader Unites with Premier E-Service and Software Provider for the Design Community to Revolutionize the Graphic Arts Industry with a Total End-to-End Solution
BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 20, 2000-- ImageX.com (Nasdaq: IMGX), the leading business-to-business Internet market maker for printed business materials, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Creativepro.com, Inc., a vertical portal and industry-leading supplier of e-services and software tools for creative professionals.
As a result of this acquisition, ImageX.com now commands the strongest foothold, by far, across the full online design-to-print spectrum. Creativepro.com's Web-enabled software products are widely used by the graphic arts professional community. With the addition of Creativepro.com's functionality and market position, ImageX.com will offer Web-enabled automation of the entire graphic arts workflow, from concept to production. In addition, Creativepro.com is a business-to-business community site which will add new Fortune 1000 companies to ImageX.com's customer base, furthering the expansion of its net market.
ImageX.com has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Creativepro.com, Inc. for a total of $97.1 million, consisting of approximately 4.3 million shares of ImageX.com common stock and $9.9 million in cash. Creativepro.com will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of ImageX.com upon closing, and will continue to operate from its Portland, Ore. headquarters. Creativepro.com founder, president and chief executive officer, Craig Barnes, will remain president of the new subsidiary, and the acquisition will add 120 skilled employees, including 43 developers and 35 marketing and sales professionals to ImageX.com. Estimated completion of the acquisition is early summer, subject to customary closing conditions.
"In the $292 billion U.S. printing and graphic arts industry, 8 out of 10 printing decisions are influenced or made by designers," said Rich Begert, president and chief executive officer of ImageX.com. "Creativepro.com captures and engages this community at the origin of the creative process, and we intend to catapult the creative professional community from desktop design to the Web to the printed page. This acquisition represents a major strategic advantage and benefits our combined corporate customers and the design community."
"ImageX.com is clearly the leading technological innovator in the online workflow process for the print industry," said Craig Barnes, president and chief executive officer of Creativepro.com. "Creativepro.com is widely recognized for our superior creative products, plus the online services and information we deliver through our Creativepro.com vertical portal site. There are approximately 8 million creative professionals worldwide, and over 1 million chose one or more of our products last year. Together, we will be in a position to deliver to our combined customers services that span the entire value chain, from concept to output, bringing new and unique efficiencies to this marketplace. When we evaluated ImageX.com against the competition, we were most impressed with ImageX.com's technology and commitment to providing the best possible service and value to corporate customers. Combined with ImageX.com's more than 1.2 million corporate customer desktop users of print and its access to more than 4,000 registered commercial printers, we will create a powerful business proposition."
"The business-to-business e-procurement market potential is huge," said Standish O'Grady, managing director of H & Q Venture Associates, LLC which manages Adobe Ventures, L.P., the investment arm of Adobe Systems Incorporated. "These two companies working as one make an exceptionally good fit." The End-to-End Solution
ImageX.com delivers an end-to-end solution to the graphic arts industry, which includes buyers and sellers of print, pre-press, paper and graphic design products and services. The company provides e-commerce solutions that improve the way businesses acquire marketing communications materials, ranging from high-end printed materials such as marketing brochures and sales folders to business cards.
ImageX.com delivers four worldwide Web-based services which are the Corporate Online Printing Center; the Small Business Printing Center; PrintBid.com, an online bidding system for more than 3,800 print buyers and more than 4,000 printers; and PaperDeals.com, an online e-market site for commercial paper stock from over 280 paper merchants and mills. In addition, the company recently launched PrintPlace.com, an online vertical e-marketplace for the graphic arts industry. The Creativepro.com acquisition extends ImageX.com's reach to the desktops of professional designers and their workgroups who use Creativepro.com's market-leading products including Preflight Online, Portfolio and Suitcase to ensure that their creative efforts flow smoothly into print production. In addition, Creativepro.com is the de facto community site on the Web for creative professionals. Aligned with ImageX.com's services and reach to the rest of the graphic arts industry with PrintPlace.com, the combined companies' Web presence has unprecedented reach to the millions of users and influencers in the print and creative production process. Vast Customer Base
With the acquisition of Creativepro.com, ImageX.com gains access to an estimated number of more than 1 million incremental customers who are using Creativepro.com's software or e-services. In addition, the company's rapidly expanding supply chain enables ImageX.com to provide a wealth of solutions to a wide and growing spectrum of customers of all sizes. Representative blue chip customers of Creativepro.com include Boeing and Exxon. Additional Creativepro.com customers span numerous industries: book and magazine publishers, including, Hearst Publications, Time, Random House and Simon and Schuster; newspapers, including, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Chicago Tribune; print companies, including, RR Donnelley & Sons, Quebecor and Graphic Arts Center; advertising agencies, including, Wieden & Kennedy, Chiat Day and Ogilvy & Mather; the fashion and retail industries, including, Liz Claiborne, Polo/Ralph Lauren and Saks Fifth Avenue; and the entertainment industry, including, Disney, Viacom, HBO and Warner Brothers.
ImageX.com customers already include Automatic Data Processing, Bell Atlantic Mobile, CB Richard Ellis, CIBC World markets, New Energy Ventures, Microsoft's Visio Division, Waddell & Reed, ShopNow.com Inc., Ticketmaster, CitySearch Inc., InfoSpace.com, HomeGrocer.com, Amazon.com, and Onvia.com. These companies join the growing core of more than 195 leading companies that have turned to ImageX.com to help streamline their printing process. Innovative, Patent-Pending Technology.
The Internet changes the way buyers and sellers connect. Knowing this, ImageX.com has built a robust, scalable Web-based e-procurement technology platform that spans across the print production supply chain, supported to date by 52 patent applications. The technology platform is highly interactive, scalable and allows all supply chain participants to get the right information at the right time.
Creativepro.com has delivered cutting edge software to creative professionals since 1993, successfully migrating its customer base from the desktop to client-server solutions and now to the Web. The Creativepro.com Web site provides vendor-neutral online information, products and e-services that support the needs of creative professionals within the print and Web publishing industries. Creativepro.com, Inc. is the parent company of the Extensis Products Group, developers of award-winning scalable client-server software products including Portfolio, for digital asset management and Suitcase, for font management. In addition, the company has recently begun delivering advanced online e-services, such as the breakthrough Preflight Online that automates diagnostic and print readiness for complex digital documents.
ImageX.com intends to integrate its patents-pending online workflow platform with Creativepro.com's popular creative professional software and e-services in order to bring the customer the most efficient and cost-saving solutions ever.
About Creativepro.com
Creativepro.com (http://www.creativepro.com) has 120 employees and generated approximately $21 million in revenue in 1999. Founded in 1993, Creativepro.com, Inc., with its Extensis Products Group, is based in Portland, Ore., and is a portfolio company of Adobe Ventures, L.P., the investment arm of Adobe Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE). The company was recently named the High Technology Company of the Year for the state of Oregon by the American Electronics Association, and was ranked as the 53rd fastest-growing technology company in the country by Forbes magazine.
About ImageX.com
Founded in 1995 and based in Bellevue, Wash., ImageX.com (Nasdaq: IMGX) is the leading business-to-business Internet market maker for printed business materials. ImageX.com caters to the unique needs of every type of printing customer - individuals, small businesses, corporations, graphic arts professionals, printing industry suppliers and manufacturers. From buying paper stock to finding the right graphic professional to design materials, ImageX.com's technology provides innovative services for each step in the process of printing materials. The company has filed for 52 patents for its Web-based, just-in-time printing manufacturing technology, which facilitates the entire workflow process from creative concept to delivery of the final product. ImageX.com's branded service areas include the Corporate Online Printing Center, the Small Business Printing Center, PrintBid.com, and PaperDeals.com, as well as PrintPlace.com, an online vertical e-marketplace for the graphic arts community. More information on the company, its services and its online marketplace can be obtained from imagex.com or by calling 800/959-7845.
Registered trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. |
