Lensrentals Acquires BorrowLenses From Shutterfly
Lensrentals announced that it has acquired BorrowLenses from Shutterfly, further solidifying its position as the top online photo, video, audio, and lighting equipment rental company in the United States.
The company specifically says that it acquired “select assets” and the BorrowLenses brand. BorrowLenses, headquartered in San Carlos, CA, was previously acquired by Shutterfly in 2013. BorrowLenses employees were notified this morning.
“As a big group of employee-owners, via our Employee Stock Ownership Plan, I think I speak for all employees when I say: we’re collectively delighted and genuinely grateful to strengthen the Lensrentals family with the addition of the BorrowLenses brand, alongside whom we’ve served customers for nearly two decades, while pushing each other to excel,” Tyler Beckman, CEO of Lensrentals, writes in a prepared statement.
“The acquisition will enable us to extend our high-quality rental and production experience to a growing customer base that demands the highest-quality technical equipment a creative needs to produce movies, video and audio, and photographic content, without the up-front expenses associated with buying gear outright and continued maintenance,” he continues.
“We look forward to welcoming all BorrowLenses customers to the Lensrentals experience.”
Founded in 2006, Lensrentals quickly grew to become the biggest player in the online camera rental space. Its biggest competition in those early years was BorrowLenses, but Lensrentals quickly outpaced the California-based company’s growth and has also remained independent over the years.
The BorrowLenses acquisition, the value of which was not disclosed, is not the first time Lensrentals’ has taken such an action. In 2017, the company merged with LensProToGo to form the “strongest photo and video equipment rental company in the US.” Both entities continue to operate as separate brands.
Lensrentals and LensProToGo offer local pickup of gear in their respective locations of Tennessee and Massachusetts as BorrowLenses does in California, although the details of the acquisition do not make it clear if that will be maintained. It is also not clear if BorrowLenses will retain its branding like LensProToGo did.
“The acquisition will expand Lensrentals’ loyal customer base while augmenting its enormous inventory of more than 400,000 copies of over 6,000 different lenses, cameras, drones, lighting, audio and other high quality production equipment and accessories, in every format, from every major manufacturer available in the market,” Lensrentals says of the acquisition.
“Additionally, the used gear program known as Keeper will also receive a significant boost in inventory.”
It’s been an eventful day for acquisitions as Nikon earlier announced that it would be buying RED Cinema.
