Hemis Agence

What Hemis Agence does

Hemis Agence is a 100% independent French stock photography agency founded in 2005 by photographers and headquartered at 57 rue Alexandre Dumas, 75011 Paris. The company operates a B2B platform for licensing photographic images to professional image buyers including editors, publishers, communication agencies, and corporate clients, and is legally structured as a SARL unipersonnelle under CEO Bertrand Gardel. Its product offering combines Rights Managed (Droits Gérés) licensing—where fees scale with usage scope (media type, circulation, duration, territory)—with Royalty-Free (Libre de Droits) flat-fee licensing priced in euros at time of download. Content is organized into themed collections covering travel, decoration, wildlife, gastronomy, environment, aerial photography, and French heritage, alongside dedicated corporate and greeting-card segments.

Hemis's competitive positioning rests on exclusive representation rights in France and/or worldwide for world-famous photographers including Yann ARTHUS-BERTRAND and Réza, supported by a dedicated six-person team organized into four departments: Photo Direction (image selection), Multimedia (digital file quality), Documentation (caption and metadata verification), and Sales (personalized B2B account support). A self-serve professional website is paired with two-person direct sales coverage targeting enterprise clients. The agency has also built a strategic distribution partnership with Alamy that allows it to resell the entire Alamy photographic fund directly through hemis.fr, and operates Hemisgalerie (hemisgalerie.com) as a separate gallery brand for physical exhibitions.

The go-to-market is hybrid: a sales-led motion (Laurence Apolinarski and François Guivarc'h supporting editors, iconographers, press, communication agencies, and corporate clients) layered onto a product-led self-serve platform gated behind professional account creation. The company claims global geographic coverage across Europe, Americas, Asia, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean, while remaining anchored to a French market and French-language publishing customer base.

Name

Hemis Agence

Legal name

Hemis SARL unipersonnelle

Website

https://hemis.fr

Company type

Private

Founded year

2005

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Hemis Agence is a 100% independent French stock photography agency founded in 2005, licensing Rights Managed and Royalty-Free images through a B2B platform and direct sales to editors, publishers, advertising agencies, and corporate clients. Its catalog is anchored by exclusive representation of world-renowned photographers including Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Réza.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Stock Photography / Picture Agency

NAICS

Photographic Services (54192), Commercial Photography (541922), Lessors of Nonfinancial Intangible Assets (except Copyrighted Works) (533)

SIC

Services-Mailing, Reproduction, Commercial Art & Photography (7330)

akta.pro primary industry

Footage & Stock Media Licensing (Archival/Newsreel/Stock) (MPADALAD)

Keywords

• Stock photography
• Picture agency
• Rights managed licensing
• Editorial photography
• Image licensing

Headquarters

HQ city

Paris

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Rights Managed (Droits Gérés) licensing: Proportional usage-based licensing where fees are calculated based on how the photographic work is used (media type, circulation, duration, territory)
2. Royalty-Free (Libre de Droits) licensing: One-time flat fee licensing independent of usage made of the photographic work

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Hemis Agence is an independent French picture agency that licenses stock photography through two models: Rights Managed (Droits Gérés) with usage-based fees and Royalty-Free (Libre de Droits) with one-time flat fees. The agency represents world-famous photographers including Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Réza with exclusive rights in France and/or worldwide, offering travel, wildlife, decoration, gastronomy, aerial, and corporate imagery to professional image buyers.

Product overview

Hemis is a 100% independent French stock photography agency founded in 2005 by photographers. The company operates a B2B platform for licensing photographic images through two licensing models: Rights Managed (Droits Gérés) with usage-based fees, and Royalty-Free (Libre de Droits) with flat-rate fees. The core offering includes travel/adventure reportages, interior/decoration photography, wildlife/animal photography, aerial photography, and corporate imagery. The portfolio spans thematic collections (Made in France, Paris, villages, gastronomy, environment), curated exhibitions, and partner content through an Alamy partnership. The platform serves professional image buyers including editors, publishers, communication agencies, and corporate clients.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Rights Managed Stock Photography (Droits Gérés)

Named customers5 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Yann ARTHUS-BERTRANDcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerWorld-renowned photographer with exclusive representation by Hemis. His work in aerial photography and environmental subjects strengthens the agency's positioning in travel and environmental imagery.
• RézacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerInternationally recognized photographer represented exclusively by Hemis. His expertise complements the agency's travel and documentary photography offerings.
• AlamycoreTechnology or IntegrationHemis represents the entire Alamy photographic collection, available directly through the Hemis homepage. This provides clients with access to an extensive global image library through a single platform.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Adobe Stock: Stock image marketplace bundled into Adobe Creative Cloud, offering royalty-free photos, vectors, and video for designers, agencies, and corporate creative teams. Direct overlap with Hemis's Royalty-Free and corporate customer use cases, with strong distribution via Adobe's existing creative software base.
• Shutterstock: Large-scale stock photography, footage and music platform serving creative professionals globally with subscription and on-demand licensing. Overlaps with Hemis on Royalty-Free licensing and serves many of the same editor, agency, and corporate buyers, but at much higher volume and price breadth.
• Getty Images: Global stock photography and editorial imagery giant with millions of images, premium Rights Managed and Royalty-Free licensing, and a strong editorial brand. Direct overlap with Hemis on the B2B editorial and corporate licensing use cases, though Getty's catalog and scale dwarf Hemis's curated library.

Direct peers

• Alamy: Global stock photography marketplace whose entire photographic collection is distributed through Hemis in France. Direct partnership/overlap, serving similar editorial and commercial image buyers with rights-managed and royalty-free imagery, but at a much larger catalog scale.
• Photo12 / Photo12.com: French image rights management and stock photo agency representing cultural, editorial, and advertising photographers. Direct competitor to Hemis in the French B2B editorial and corporate licensing market, with overlapping verticals in lifestyle, art, and culture.
• Gamma-Rapho: Historic French picture agency representing editorial and historical photography, including work by major 20th-century photographers. Closest direct French competitor to Hemis in editorial and cultural image licensing, with similar B2B sales-led motion serving magazines, publishers, and press.
• Sipa Press: French photojournalism and editorial press agency with global photo and video coverage. Comparable to Hemis as a Paris-based B2B image rights specialist, though more weighted to news, celebrity, and current-affairs editorial content versus Hemis's travel/lifestyle focus.
• Biosphoto: French stock photo agency specializing in nature, wildlife, and environmental photography. Direct competitor to Hemis's wildlife and nature vertical, serving similar editorial, publishing, and corporate clients with curated naturalist imagery.

Regional players

• age fotostock: Spain-based stock photography and rights-managed imagery agency with strong European editorial and travel content. Comparable to Hemis as a European rights-managed specialist serving travel, lifestyle, and editorial buyers, though with a different home-market focus.
• Westend61: Germany-based stock photography agency with strong travel, lifestyle, and editorial content distributed globally. Comparable European peer to Hemis in vertical focus (travel, lifestyle, people) and B2B rights-managed licensing model, though with German rather than French primary market.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/hemisfr

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Hemis Agence