Sausalito, CA—liveBooks, Inc., a photo-rich content management platform focused on sharing and distributing across the web, mobile and print-on-demand channels, acquired on-demand photo companies Pinhole Press and Pinhole Pro.
The acquisition expands liveBooks’ market opportunity with a differentiated offering targeted at the on-demand photo gift industry, which is estimated to reach $2 billion by 2014, according to InfoTrends.
“liveBooks and Pinhole are united by a shared vision of elegant design, superior product quality and simplicity of use,” said Andy Patrick, liveBooks’ president and CEO. “Joining forces with Pinhole enables us to create an e-commerce platform that expands our existing relationships with more than 25,000 professional photographers by enabling them to further enhance their online presence and leverage their offline brand through photo books, calendars, cards and other unique, high-quality personalized products.”
Both Pinhole Press, a lifestyle brand aimed at consumers, and Pinhole Pro, which targets the professional photographer market, provide elegant e-commerce products that utilize top-of-the-line paper from Mohawk, the largest privately owned fine paper manufacturer in North America. Mohawk, which is located in Albany, New York, incubated Pinhole.
“The success of Pinhole Press and Pinhole Pro proves that professionals and consumers care about design and high-quality papers like Mohawk Superfine. These beautiful products paired with liveBooks’ web technology will produce an exciting brand like nothing else in the market today,” said Tom O’Connor, Mohawk’s CEO.
“We have a robust product roadmap and are very excited about our combined potential to capitalize on the growing trend toward personalization and tap this tremendous market opportunity,” added Patrick. “Not only will the thousands of wedding photographers currently using liveBooks now have a deeply integrated suite of high-quality, sophisticated design merchandise to offer their customers, but we see rapid expansion into additional design-oriented categories as well.” livebooks.com
