© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Thomson Reuters logo is seen on the company building in Times Square, New York, U.S., January 30, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
(Reuters) – Thomson Reuters (NYSE:) will buy Imagen, a digital content asset management company, for an undisclosed price, to expand its agency business to new customers, the news and information company said on Wednesday.
Britain-based Imagen, which owns the Screenocean video distribution platform, operates digital content libraries for sports, media and business companies including Premier League soccer and Major League Baseball.
Imagen will become a part of the Reuters News division.
The acquisition is part of a plan to serve more clients as they expand their streaming video businesses. “Our belief is that our agency business needs to evolve to be a tech-enabled content delivery (business),” Reuters President Paul Bascobert said in an interview.
“With the addition of Imagen, clients will have the ability to seamlessly add media asset management services to store, manipulate, permission, distribute and monetize all their visual content,” Bascobert added in a prepared statement.
Reuters currently serves agency clients through Reuters Connect, which is a business-to-business content marketplace that licenses Reuters text, images and videos as well as news and content from more than 70 other providers that include the BBC, USA Today and China’s CCTV.
The deal is the second announced this week. On Monday, Thomson Reuters said it agreed to buy Casetext, a California-based AI company that helps legal professionals conduct research, analysis and prepare documents using generative AI, for $650 million.
Thomson Reuters has said it has earmarked $10 billion for acquisitions and about $100 million per year in investments in AI capabilities.
