Today, the company sells images to 750,000 customers in more than 150 countries for use on websites, as well as for digital or printed marketing materials, according to the company. Net income rose 117 percent to $47.5 million last year, while revenue increased 41 percent to $169.6 million.

“It’s one of the most solid companies in the Internet space,” said Sequin. “When you compare it to the recent tech IPO’s, it’s one of the few that has a proven track record of profitability.”

Growing Market

Shutterstock estimates that the market for digital imagery will grow to $6 billion in 2016 from $4 billion in 2011, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission. The company competes with online image marketplaces such as iStockphoto Inc. and Fotolia LLC, and photo archives managed by Seattle-based Getty Images Inc. and Corbis Corp., which is owned by Cascade Investment LLC, the holding company controlled by billionaire Bill Gates.

Unlike Getty and Corbis, Shutterstock doesn’t own its content. The site’s contributors -- photographers, illustrators and artists who so far have been paid more than $150 million, according to the company -- retain ownership of their copyrights. The arrangement has allowed Shutterstock to keep its capital expenditures low and its talent pool deep.

Oringer’s rising fortune coincides with an uptick in New York’s technology sector.

“There is a change going on in the city that is leveraging the inherent strength in New York,” said Frank Rimalovski, managing director of New York University’s Innovation Venture Fund, which manages $20 million to invest in technologies developed by NYU’s students and faculty. “Think about Tumblr and Shutterstock. They didn’t have to break any new laws of computer science or electrical engineering to build their business.”

Eastern Revival

According to Ian Sigalow, partner and co-founder of Greycroft Partners LLC, a New York-based venture capital fund that usually invests between $500,000 and $5 million in early- stage technology companies, 70 percent of all the media purchased in the U.S. is managed from Manhattan.

“Salespeople are going to want to be where the customer is, and that’s New York,” said Sigalow. “Even entrepreneurs I meet in Boston say that the next company they start, they want it to be in New York.”