in february 2018, shutterstock invested $15 million into china based zcool, building on the operational relationship the two firms have had since 2014 when zcool first became the exclusive distributor of shutterstock creative content in china. webdam, which shutterstock itself acquired back in 2014, was sold to amsterdam-based bynder for $49.1 million to move shutterstock's strategy away from digital asset management. shutterstock later enter into a partnership with tencent social ads, the online advertising subsidiary of tencent.