One emerging battleground in the SMB SaaS world is the creator economy. Not necessarily a new segment, these are the Etsy artists and cooking show upstarts of the world. The common thread is an SMB online persona or micro-brand that distributes goods or knowledge online.
This segment has expanded in the Covid era as SMBs like yoga instructors and music schools were forced to join these ranks of digitally-distributed pros. Correspondingly, the trend breathed new life into a software providers like Canva that build production and operations tools for creators.
Now Vistaprint is emboldening its position with two new acquisitions and a name change to “Vista.” Last week, it picked up Crello and Depositphotos. In fairness, Vistaprint always tapped into SMB creative activity but it was more about business cards and signage. These acquisitions broaden its position.
Digital Divide
Going deeper on these acquisitions, Crello is an online graphic design editor that competes with Canva. Depositphotos is its parent company and a stock photo repository. Together they’ll comprise a new offering from Vista called VistaCreate, bringing the company into the realm of SMB graphic design.
The total purchase price was $85 million, but this is just part of a broader repositioning that will invest $250 million total. In fact, last week’s acquisitions follow the purchase of 99 designs, a marketplace for sourcing designers for specific jobs. It has also partnered with Wix for tighter website integration.
Stepping back, these moves represent a transition from print to digital. Indeed, this can be seen explicitly in the new company branding, which has literally dropped the “print” suffix. Crello will accelerate that goal as it brings “millions” of SMB customers, 3 million of which it added in 2021 alone.
Depositphotos meanwhile has 220 million photos and other graphics from 100,000+ contributors. This should provide a foundation for digital assets that SMBs can use in their graphic design endeavors. But it’s just that… a foundation, as other components are needed for a comprehensive suite.
Road Map
Speaking of expanding Vista’s design software suite, the question is what could come next. And for that, we can look at some of its competitors like Adobe Creative Cloud and Canva. The latter is probably a closer comparison, given that it targets SMBs as opposed to higher-end graphic design pros.
So if we look at Canva as a leading indicator for where Vista could go next, the first thing on the list is likely video. As we examined recently, Canva has beefed up its video creation capability for SMBs. This is a natural and adjacent area of expansion for any design software, as is website building.
To that end, we can expect Vista to continue building, buying, and partnering to buttress its SMB marketing and design portfolio. We’ll keep watching to see where it goes next and how it maneuvers its way into position to compete more directly with Canva and Adobe — both formidable players.
