Freepik is a digital content and design platform founded in 2010 in Málaga, Spain, by Alejandro Sánchez Blanes, Pablo Blanes, and Joaquín Cuenca. The platform provides services in graphic design, presentations, photography, icons, video, music, and AI-assisted content generation. From its inception, the company has adopted a freemium model—offering basic content for free and advanced content via paid subscriptions—targeting users in visually intensive fields such as design, development, marketing, and education.
Foundation and Development
Freepik was initially developed as a search engine that aggregated free vector graphics from blogs. Aimed at fulfilling the design needs of users, the tool quickly attracted a large user base, prompting the company to increase its content production capacity. While it initially indexed third-party content, the platform gradually shifted toward prioritizing in-house production, allowing full control over quality, licensing, and user experience. By 2017, Freepik’s monthly revenue had reached €1.2 million. In 2020, the Swedish investment fund EQT acquired a majority stake in Freepik at a valuation of approximately €300 million. The founders continued to lead the company.
Product Lines and Sub-Brands
Freepik operates a suite of sub-brands that serve distinct content categories:
- Freepik: Vectors, PSD files, photos, and templates
- Flaticon: Icons and icon sets
- Slidesgo: Presentation templates
- Wepik: Graphic editing and content creation tools
- Storyset: Story-based illustrations
- Videvo: Video content and stock footage
- Iconfinder: A Denmark-based icon search platform (acquired)
- EyeEm: A photo sharing and stock platform (acquired in 2023)
With these sub-brands, Freepik serves over 100 million monthly users and collaborates with more than 50,000 content providers.
Artificial Intelligence Integration and Technology Investments
In the 2020s, Freepik began integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its content generation processes. In 2023, the company introduced F Lite, an AI model trained on commercially licensed and safe visual data. Developed in collaboration with Fal.ai, the training utilized 64 NVIDIA H100 GPUs. F Lite is available in “standard” and “texture” versions, supporting the production of approximately 4 million images daily. Freepik also offers AI-powered tools such as Pikaso (image generation from sketches) and Slidesgo’s text-to-slide system for automated presentation creation. These tools aim to enhance user experience and accelerate content production.
Licensing, Copyright, and Content Management
Content usage on Freepik is subject to restrictions based on user level. Free users have daily download limits and are required to provide attribution for commercial use. Premium members gain broader access and licensing rights without attribution requirements. To prevent copyright violations, Freepik employs in-house design directors to audit uploaded content and uses third-party image recognition technologies to perform similarity checks. Users can report potential copyright issues through the platform.
Community Engagement and Local Initiatives
In addition to its global presence, Freepik participates in local initiatives. In 2024, it launched the Neighborhood Design project in Málaga, aiming to enhance local business branding. A similar initiative was carried out in 2025 in the Excelsior District of San Francisco, using AI-assisted tools to redesign storefronts and interiors. These projects also provided real-world experience to young designers and supported the local economy through community-based design.
Financial Data and User Base
In 2021, Freepik reached its highest annual revenue to date, generating €61.5 million. Most of this revenue—approximately 70%—came from paid subscriptions. That same year, total payments to content contributors exceeded €13 million. Since its founding, the platform has paid over €30 million in royalties.
As of 2025, Freepik employs over 550 people, works with nearly 600 freelance designers, and collaborates with more than 50,000 registered content providers.
International Expansion and Future Plans
Following the EQT investment, Freepik accelerated its international expansion strategy, especially into markets such as the United States and Asia. The company developed localized search engines and language support for regions including Japan and South Korea, adapting its content strategy to regional demands. The Slidesgo platform has seen notable success in the U.S. education market.
Freepik plans to continue growing through investments in new content categories such as video, animated icons, 3D assets, and typography. Through its 2023 initiative, Freepik Labs, the company aims to accelerate product development and time-to-market. As part of this effort, it launched Vidfy, its first video production platform.
Freepik remains one of the largest European-born platforms in the field of graphic and digital content, successfully integrating AI and transforming its content production model. The company remains headquartered in Málaga and continues to invest in local talent and community-driven projects.
