acquisition

Nikon Expanding Into Medical Devices with $400M Acquisition of Retinal Imaging Firm

Last year Nikon announced that it had set aside $1.96 billion for mergers and acquisitions into new industries in order to diversity from the camera industry that had grown the 98-year-old company to greatness.

The Japanese company is now using a portion of that cash pile on its first major expansion purchase: a £259M (~$400M) acquisition of the Scottish retinal imaging firm Optos.

C&A Marketing Buys Out Calumet Brand, Bringing Back a Few Entities

It came as quite a surprise to everyone – including their own employees – when Calumet camera stores went out of business quite literally overnight. As is to be expected in such a downfall, much of their capital has been sold off in hopes to gain back as much as possible. But, as much as anything else, the fall of Calumet has left people wondering what will happen to the brand that many photographers came to know and trust.

Leica Acquires Swiss Large Format View Camera Manufacturer Sinar

Leica began its takeover of Swiss view camera manufacturer Sinar all the way back in 2006, when the German company acquired a 51% stake in Sinar from Jenoptik. The real goal, however, was only truly achieved yesterday when both companies announced via press release that they had reached an acquisition deal.

Snapchat Supposedly Turned Down a $3 Billion Acquisition Offer from Facebook

When Facebook spent the staggering amount of $1 billion on the Instagram acquisition, people the world over thought they were crazy for throwing that kind of money on an app that, at the time, hadn't generated any revenue.

Well, that acquisition turned out pretty well for CEO Zuckerberg, who has since allegedly turned his sights on Snapchat, only to have an even more ludicrous offer spurned. How much more ludicrous, you ask? Apparently, Snapchat recently turned down a $3 billion offer from the social media giant.

Yahoo! Snaps Up Startup IQ Engines, Will Improve Flickr Organization and Search

Yahoo! certainly doesn't shy away from acquiring companies it believes will help its cause. In some cases those acquisitions turn into long-term investments ala Flickr, in others the acquired company just sort of disappears.

The latest acquisition news out of the Yahoo! camp is that image-recognition startup IQ Engines is joining the Flickr team in order to help improve the organization and search features of the photo sharing site.

Instagram Enters the Acquisition Game, Purchases Video App Luma

It wasn't so long ago that Instagram was in the business of being bought, but now that the app has the power of Facebook behind it, as Bob Dylan would say: The Times They Are a-Changin'. In addition to the recent update to the company's brand guidelines that banned the use of "Insta" and "Gram" by connected apps (among other things), the company just made an acquisition of its own.

Photography Website Service liveBooks Acquired by WeddingWire

Yesterday we shared some news coming out of photographer Vincent LaForet's camp that the website service liveBooks -- which is used by many photographers -- was quite possibly on its way out. This after a month of silence and "knowledgeable sources" indicating that the US branch of the business was all but shut down.

A few hours after that news broke, however, we found out what was really happening: liveBooks has been acquired by the online event marketplace WeddingWire.

Dropbox Shuts Down Photo Storage Site Snapjoy Just 6 Months After Acquiring It

Back in December, Dropbox acquired the photo storage service Snapjoy, seemingly getting ready to jump head first into the cloud sharing battle. At the time, the announcement on the Snapjoy blog rang with excitement, and even though they weren't going to be accepting new signups, they promised that "your photos are safe!"

Well, not anymore. As of yesterday, Dropbox has officially decided to shut down the service -- a decision that was confirmed by Snapjoy on its blog and through an email to all of its remaining subscribers.

Photography Portfolio Website Zenfolio Acquired by Art.com

Art.com is "the world's largest online specialty retailer of high-end wall art." Zenfolio offers "online photography presentation and sales solutions for professional photographers and enthusiasts." Knowing that, Zenfolio's acquisition by Art.com announced earlier seems like a match made in sales heaven.

Rumor: Shutterfly Aquiring Photo Sharing and Backup Company ThisLife

Over the last year, almost every time we've heard the word "acquisition" it's been preceded by the word, or rather company, Shutterfly. That's because Shutterfly has been very busy buying up companies and galleries and, fortunately for users, putting them to work in real ways.

It was less than two weeks ago that the new Shutterfly Mobile app was announced, a result of its Penguin Digital acquisition. And now, in time to steal a little bit of thunder from all of the CES rumors, sources claim that the photo storage and sharing site is acquiring yet another start-up.

Dropbox Acquires Snapjoy, Gearing Up for Cloud Photo Sharing War

In the world of cloud data storage, Dropbox is one of the 800lb gorillas fighting for your files. In recent days, it has been making big moves to become more of a player in photo storage and sharing. After all, everyone needs a safe place to keep their digital images, right?

The company's latest play came today in the form of an acquisition: Dropbox has acquired fellow cloud-storage company Snapjoy -- a business based around aggregating photos from around the web and from your various devices.

Kodak Patents Acquired by Group That Includes Apple, Google, and Facebook

One chapter in the saga of Kodak's escape from bankruptcy has come to an end. The company announced today that it has completed the sale of its valuable imaging patents for $525 million to a group of Silicon Valley companies. The deal involves more than 1,100 patents related to the capturing, manipulating, and sharing of digital photographs.

500px Acqui-hires 2-Person Team Behind Popular iOS Photo-Browsing App ISO500

500px is on a tear. The service has been growing like a weed as of late, and appears to have some ambitious plans in the works. The company announced today that it has acqui-hired (i.e. buying out a small company mainly for the team's talent) the two-man development team Pulpfingers, creators of the popular iOS 500px browsing app ISO500.

Citizen Journalism Photo Agency Demotix Snatched Up by Corbis

Corbis, one of the largest photo agencies in the world, has agreed to acquire Demotix, a crowd-sourced citizen journalism photo agency that was founded in 2008. Corbis had already picked up a piece of the young agency through an investment last year, but now it has decided to purchase the whole company outright. The acquisition price was not disclosed.