Headquartered in Amsterdam, Albelli trades in the UK as Bonusprint as well as Fotoknudsen and Onskefoto in Europe and Scandinavia and was part of web-to-print giant Cimpress until its $92m sale to Netherlands-based Gilde Buy Out Partners during the summer.
This acquisition with the backing of its new owner, which completed on 4 September for an undisclosed sum, marks an expansion into new technology areas for Albelli.
“Artificial Intelligence is transforming a lot of businesses and we believe that with the acquisition of ReSnap, we will be able to transform the photo product business, creating even greater value for our customers,” said Albelli chief executive Tristan Money.
“Consumers are taking more and more photos. Combining ReSnap’s smart photo selection technology with Albelli’s current award winning software, we will be able to make the whole process of photo selection and photo product creation a lot easier for our customers,” he explained.
Twelve-staff ReSnap was founded in Nijmegen, Netherlands in 2013 by Erik-Jan Schreurs, Thomas Beguin, Luc Hendriks and Joachim den Hertog.
The award-winning ecommerce start-up company produces photobooks and has developed and implented its own artificial intelligence technology, which it claims is unique in the market, that can select the best images out of thousands across different data sources and automatically create an album within 60 seconds. ReSnap previously outsourced its printing to RPI in Einhoven and the US but this will now be brought in-house to Albelli.
The firm will continue to operate as a standalone brand from its Nijmegen base although co-founder Beguin told PrintWeek that where synergy could be achieved within the whole group, it would be achieved.
He said that the high growth business was expanding rapidly in Benelux, the UK, the US and Australia and that its current €1m turnover would "grow exponentially as part of the Albelli group".
ReSnap chief executive Schreurs added: “We are very proud to join one of the leading photo product companies in Europe. Consumers make more photos every day but struggle with the selection or creation process to make a photo book. This is where technology comes in and allows for an effortless experience.
“Our deep learning algorithms give our users insight in their most memorable photos and turn them into beautiful photo books in an easy way. We are currently growing very fast and together with albelli we can offer our solution to many more consumers in the world.”
