PowerDVD-maker CyberLink acquires ImageChef to round out its digital media suite

What would a DVD software company want with an image collage website? For CyberLink, it’s all about offering a solution for almost any media-editing need.

CyberLink, best known for its PowerDVD software on PCs, announced today that it has acquired ImageChef, a startup that’s built a community of 10 million people around its image collage and 3D text editing tools. The company already offers PC software for editing images, photos, and even audio, but with ImageChef it now has a popular web-based editing tool.

Dr. Jau Huang, CyberLink’s founder and chief technology officer, tells me he was particularly interested in ImageChef’s 3D text tool, which lets you place realistic text inside of any image. Of course, the fact that ImageChef already has a strong community of 10 million people doesn’t hurt either.

“Jut as Adobe is owning the enterprise market, CyberLink is uniquely positioned to own the market for consumers and prosumers,” Huang said in an interview with VentureBeat.

While PowerDVD has been a smashing success (it’s now bundled together with many PCs), CyberLink is looking ahead to make sure it stays relevant as consumers no longer need dedicated DVD software and move their media-editing needs to the cloud.

San Francisco-based ImageChef was founded in 2003 and was entirely self-funded. CyberLink isn’t discussing terms of the acquisition.