Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Autodesk, Comics, deviantART, Investment, madefire, Sketchbook pro

DeviantArt Gets $10 Million From Autodesk

Published Sat, 09 Nov 2013 17:00:42 -0600

If you are an up-and-coming artist today or at least want to be, you most likely have a page on deviantART, the social media and portfolio site that claims to have over 27 million users and generates 2.5 billion page views a month. The website has been around for thirteen years and unlike many other internet social outlets of any longevity, it's still viable and popular place.

According to the documents filed with the SEC, they received $10 million dollars in funding from a company called Autodesk, Inc. Speculation is that the company is looking for a community to build around its Sketchbook Pro digital painting software and wants to tap into the deviantArt membership to do it. This makes Autodesk the websites largest investor.

CEO and co-founder Angelo Sotira announced the investment on his blog in September.

I'm excited to let you know that Autodesk, Inc. has made an investment in deviantART and that one of Autodesk's top executives, Samir Hanna, Vice President of the Autodesk Consumer Group, will become an observer on the deviantART Board of Directors.

Autodesk has over 30 years of history in helping designers create amazing things. You may know Autodesk for apps like SketchBook and Pixlr for drawing, illustration, and image editing, or for software like 3ds Max and Maya, which are used by the top film and game studios around the world to create fantastically realistic 3D characters, environments, and effects. Amazing fact: the last 17 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects use Autodesk software. Autodesk is also known for engineering software like AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit, which has been used to design some of the world's tallest buildings, longest bridges, and most incredible machines.

With the investment we plan to improve deviantART at a faster pace than we could have just under our own steam. More deviantART delivered deviously — that's the plan. I can assure you, there will be no change in control over the community or company as a result of this deal but the rest of the terms are staying confidential for now.

Our consistent growth as a community and in raw numbers visiting the site proves how vital dA has become to so many involved in the arts and in the popular culture reflected and created by deviants. It takes more than just extra servers to keep up with this growth. We so deeply appreciate all the support from the community, from staff and from volunteers. It's hard work but with a huge result — for me and for many others the best place to be on the Internet.

— Angelo

The amount of the investment wasn't revealed until the SEC filing this week.

Last year deviantArt announced a partnership with Madefire that allowed users access to Madefire's motion book tool to create, share and sell any of their work.

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