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Index Stock is a leading international provider in the $1.5 billion visual content industry. Index provides visual content to advertising and design agencies, magazine, newspaper, book and new media publishers, and to the rapidly growing markets of small business users and desktop publishers working in small offices or home offices ("SOHO") and retail consumers. The company markets reproduction rights to its library of one million digital images through four brands: Index Stock Imagery and Index Open (advertisers, designers, large corporations, magazines, and book publishers); Photos To Go and Photos To Go Unlimited (small business and home business users of images).

Current CEO Bahar Gidwani has acquired and combined the image resources of twelve companies since 1991. These include: in 1991, Index Stock International, an 11-year old agency maintaining a broad collection of images for the advertising and design markets; in 1992, Telephoto, a five-year old agency possessing a broad collection of images for the advertising and travel photography markets; in early 1996, ProFiles West, an eight-year old agency specializing in Western lifestyle, travel, North American animals and outdoor and extreme sports; in mid-1996, Southern Stock, a 20-year old agency specializing in Southern lifestyle, travel, underwater photography, resort activities and water sports; in May of 1998 The Picture Cube, a 21-year old agency in Boston with a strong editorial collection; in June of 1998, Stock Imagery, a Denver-based source of contemporary lifestyle and nature images; in August of 1998, Photobank in Irvine, CA. brought more Western lifestyle images; in September of 1998, Light Sources, a Boston-based agency, added more contemporary lifestyle work; in later 1999, the Canadian Image Ideas collection of royalty free images launched this part of Index's file; in September of 2000, a combination with Culver City-based Stockworks greatly increased Index's online illustration collection; and finally, in December 2000, Index added WebSpice's huge collection of clip art and its subscription technology.

Index Stock's growing library of digitized, stored and categorized images are model-released, property-released, and cleared for on-line commerce. The Company has more than 120 partners who help it distribute these images, including Amazing Mail, Art.com, OnStream, Electromark, EZ Prints, Microsoft, and Verisign!

Despite the Company's sophisticated technological infrastructure and digital orientation, Index remains primarily interested in partnering with and representing its artists. It owns no images and pays a commission to its artists on every license that it makes. The Company is a member of PACA, the Picture Agency Council of America, the SIIA (the Software and Information Industry Association), the ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers), and was one of the founding members of NYNMA (New York New Media Association). It is privately held and includes among its backers several major venture capital firms, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, J & W Seligman, Meridian Ventures, SCP Venture Partners, and SunAmerica Ventures.