Cafepress acquired ImageKind for an alleged $15-20 million. As Venturebeat reports:
"Imagekind, an online marketplace for original and reprinted artwork, has been bought by online t-shirt and gift seller CafePress, a reliable source tells us, with rival Zazzle losing out on the deal.
We hear the acquisition price may have been between $15 million and $20 million, although we’re still looking for confirmation on the amount."
More reports on the acquisition found on the ImageKind blog (Imagekind joins CafePress and Special Announcement: CaféPress Acquires Imagekind.com) as well as the announcement from Cafepress (Imagekind®, welcome to the family! and CafePress Expands Its On-Demand Canvas By Acquiring Imagekind).
Holtzbrinck Ventures and other investors had invested $2.6 million in the startup in February 2007.
As the official announcements leave a lot of questions open, the best background info comes from John Cook, as always the most informed on companies in the Seattle area:
"In an interview, Saliba said that the company decided to sell now because CafePress is the leader in print-on-demand services. (Best known for its customized T-shirts) And he said there's an opportunity to grow the Imagekind business faster with CafePress, which already offers a poster and framing business on its Web site.
"We think this puts a lot of accelerant on the fire and we can become a much larger and formidable consumer brand, especially in the art space with CafePress' backing," he said.
Imagekind employs 26 people in Seattle and Portland, with plans to add a few new employees in the coming months. Saliba declined to say whether the company was profitable, but he said the business has grown in terms of revenue, traffic and artists every month. He declined to offer revenue or traffic figures.
But he did say that more than 50,000 artists have contributed more than one million pieces of artwork to the community. The average framed artwork sale on the site is $126, with some orders surpassing $1,000. It also offers customized greeting cards for as little $3."
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.
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