Dead Pixels Society interviews Fotomerchant, ImageQuix executives

ImageQuix, a leading provider of software solutions for professional photographers, recently announced the acquisition of Fotomerchant, one of the most respected end-to-end workflow solutions for high-volume studios. In an exclusive interview, Gary Pageau of the Dead Pixels Society talks with Tim McCain, president, of ImageQuix; Elmar Platzer, CEO and co-founder, of Fotomerchant, and Derek Clapham, CTO and co-founder, of Fotomerchant, about what this combination means for the industry, for the companies and their customers.

In the interview, the executives talked about the various business decisions that went into the combination, as well as what this means for the industry. Bringing together the Australia-based Fotomerchant with ImageQuix and its various entities creates a worldwide company, the executives said.

“We were looking to raise capital,” explained Platzer. “You’ve got two options, private equity and venture capital (VC) and with private equity, the minimum check size is these days is so large, right? It would have been highly dilutive for us. And then if you want to raise less than that, you need to go down the VC markets. But you’re hitching your wagon to a horse that, you know, don’t necessarily want to be each to either, right? Because they have a different set of expectations. When we evaluated that we thought it’d be good to partner with someone with the resources … that actually is the shared vision that we have.”

On the other side of the pond, Raleigh-based ImageQuix, fresh off a new capital investment from Charlesbank Capital Partners, was looking for partners. Fotomerchant was on the list of potential partners, according to McCain.

“The Charlesbank [acquisition] happened 13 months ago and that was part of the talks at the beginning,” said McCain. “When you’re doing all that, you had to put together a deal theory and where there was white space and where [Charlesbank] can make money. That was absolutely part of the discussion. And there’s a targeted list of people that you would hope to do business with, and partner up in the future, and Fotomerchant was absolutely on it.”

Watch the video interview below:

For those who just want to listen to the audio, listen below: