Freepik Company Announces the Entry of EQT as Its Major New Owner
The three founders of Freepik Company —tech company specializing in creating and providing visual content—, Alejandro Sánchez, Pablo Blanes, and Joaquín Cuenca, have announced today the sale of the major part of the company to the Swedish investment firm EQT Mid Market Europe (EQT).
Alejandro, Joaquín and Pablo remain the owners of a minority part of Freepik Company, which was established in Malaga (Spain) in 2010, and they continue to be fully in charge of the strategic management and international development of the company.
With 32 million unique users per month, an average of over 110 million monthly downloads and a visual content library that offers over 10 million graphic resources, Freepik Company has managed to position its creative products —Freepik, Flaticon, and Slidesgo—, as the go-to tools for designers and marketers around the world.
Freepik (2010) is one of the most valued micro-stock platforms by creatives and graphic designers, providing millions of free and premium ready-to-use vectors, stock photos and PSD files. Flaticon (2013) is the largest database of free editable icons that users can find, making it one of the most valuable tools web designers. Slidesgo (2019) provides hundreds of free editable and beautifully designed templates that are compatible with Google Slides and PowerPoint, and it has become one of the most useful tools for teachers, marketers, and businesses.
EQT, an investment firm with global reach, over 26 years of activity and a wide experience in the development of tech companies, is from now on, subject to clearance from relevant competition authorities, the owner of the majority of Freepik Company.
According to Alejandro Sánchez, one of the three co-founders of Freepik Company, “the investment of EQT into the property is great news for everyone, especially for the team that works at Freepik Company and for all our users and contributors around the world. Now we will have additional resources and expertise that will help us develop new services and products. We will reinforce our already strong position in the micro-stock industry and focus more on growing in each segment. In short, we are now totally ready to expand worldwide without limits!”.
For Joaquín Cuenca, co-founder of Freepik Company, “we entered this process looking for a great partner, and EQT has proven itself again and again. We met physically only once, before we were locked down in Spain, and they adapted quickly to the situation, putting together an impressive array of expert advisors in no time. We want to expand in the US and East Asian markets, and the expertise that EQT can reach on search engines, AI, and marketing will be key to help us penetrate these markets. Our goal stays the same: make great creative content available to everyone. Make users happy and everything else will follow. Our plan is to execute on that at an unprecedented scale.”
Pablo Blanes, also co-founder of Freepik Company, adds that “we want to increase and diversify our value proposition in this new phase and offer the best visual content of the industry. We’ll continue developing new creative tools to make them easy to use for everyone and to inspire our professional users. We look forward to becoming one of the creativity referents in the world”.
After 10 years of remarkable activity, recognized with several achieved milestones in the micro-stock industry, turnover in 2019 of more than 31 million euros, and a team of 233 employees as of today (20% of them joining in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic situation), Freepik Company has finally given entrance to external capital to give impulse to its international expansion.
About Freepik Company
Freepik Company is a technological company specialized in the production and distribution of graphic resources, and the parent brand of Freepik, Flaticon, and Slidesgo, leading platforms built to empower creatives around the world. Freepik’s ever-growing library of graphics, templates, icons, and photos, plus a resource center with tips and tutorials, make content creation easy and inspiring. With nearly 200 employees and headquartered in Málaga, Spain, Freepik has led the Financial Times “Fastest Growing European Companies” Ranking, and it also occupies the first position in Spain according to the Startup Ranking. More at www.freepikcompany.com.
About EQT
EQT is a differentiated global investment organization with more than EUR 62 billion in raised capital and around EUR 40 billion in assets under management across 19 active funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America, with total sales of more than EUR 27 billion and approximately 159,000 employees. EQT works with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth, operational excellence, and market leadership.
Contact:
Freepik Company Press Office: pr@freepik.com
