IAC plans to spin off Vimeo as an independent company

IAC announced today that it plans to turn Vimeo into an independent, publicly-traded company.

Last month, IAC CEO Joey Levin wrote a letter to shareholders in which he said the holding company had “begun contemplating spinning Vimeo off to our shareholders.” It sounds like the company has moved beyond the contemplation phase, with plans that will be submitted for stockholder approval in the first quarter of 2021, and the actual spin off happening in Q2.

“The combination of Vimeo’s remarkable growth, solid leadership position, and enormous market opportunity have made clear its future,” Levin said in a statement today. “It’s time for Vimeo to spread its wings and become a great independent public company.”

While Vimeo once competed with YouTube as a consumer video destination, its strategy has shifted in recent years to providing video tools for businesses. In November, the company said it had 1.5 million paying subscribers and 3,500 enterprise clients — and that its most recent quarter was with positive EBITDA, plus year-over-year revenue growth of 44%.

The announcement notes that this is the eleventh company that IAC has spun off, a process in which it distributes its ownership stake to IAC shareholders. (Match Group completed its separation from IAC over the summer.)

“Today we have a rare opportunity to help every team and organization in the world integrate video throughout their operations, across all the ways they communicate and collaborate,” said Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud in a statement. “Our all-in-one solution radically lowers the barriers of time, cost, and complexity that previously made professional-quality video unattainable. We’re ready for this next chapter and focused on making video far easier and more effective than ever before.”