The co-founders of Durham startup Spoonflower are stitching together quite a success story. Focusing on custom fabrics and other products ordered by customers online, Spoonflower has just closed on $25 million. And its co-founders have big plans for the future.

  • They plan to add 50 jobs, most of which will be in the Triangle. That’s increasing work force by a third.
  • They’re opening an office in Berlin.
  • They recently grew their business’s footprint at 2810 Meridian Parkway in Durham to more than 34,000 square feet.
  • And they say they’ve only “scratched the surface” of the potential for their business.

Stephen Fraser and Gart Davis, the co-founders of the company, left executive positions at self-publishing firm Lulu to launch Spoonflower in 2008. The two have been frequent visitors and participants in startup and venture capital-related events ever since even as they chose initially to bootstrap. A grant from NC IDEA helped them get the business going.

In fact, in the product announcement they say the first met lead investor North Bridge at the CED Tech Venture conference in 2014. Bull City Venture Partners also is an investor in the first institutional capital Spoonflower has taken.

So far, the firm’s growth has been remarkable. The firm’s growth has been remarkable: Spoonflower has already been growing rapidly, cracking the latest Inc. 5000 list with revenues soaring 469 percent over the past three years to reach $15.2 million. And Spoonflower aims to take as big a share as possible in a growing international demand for custom fabrics.

In a Q&A with WRAL TechWire, Fraser talks about Spoonflower’s immediate plans, goals, and why he believes the firm has been successful since launching in 2008.

What are the key factors in your success thus far?

We were lucky to have started Spoonflower in the Triangle, which offered us great access not just to people but also to resources that helped us master the learning curve about textiles and digital printing. [TC]2 in Cary, the NC State College of Textiles, Cotton Inc. — the proximity of these organizations was a huge help.

Affordable rent and a population of sophisticated, creative potential employees were key. Being able to get our web site and manufacturing operation off the ground back in 2008 on a shoestring budget is something that would have been more difficult in many other places and impossible in some.

Do you have a secret sauce – any protected IP?

Spoonflower is not really an IP-play from an investor standpoint. Partly because we were the first Internet-based tool to allow people to design their own fabric, we have a big lead on competitors in terms of brand and community. With thousands of designers who sell through our marketplace and hundreds of thousands of customers around the world, we have a lot of momentum.

And we’ve also developed a sophisticated, software-based work flow to run our on-demand manufacturing operation, as well as a lot of expertise in digital textile printing, which is a technology still in its infancy.

Why is demand growing for such products and services? What are the personal needs Spoonflower meets?

We have the great good fortune to sell products that allow people greater personal expression. When a person designs her own fabric, she is — of course — expressing herself creatively. But what’s slightly less obvious is that the process of shopping for fabrics, of choosing designs that you love and colors that you love, is also a powerful act of self-expression. In that way, the growth of Spoonflower is deeply tied to the growth of the DIY movement, but also more broadly to the trends of personalization and curation that you see all over — on Etsy and Pinterest and elsewhere.

Are you getting corporate interest in a) your process and b) in buying from you in bulk?

We designed Spoonflower to serve individual designers, but what’s interesting is that many of those individuals have become businesses and even grown to become big businesses, partly because having access to on-demand textile manufacturing has allowed them to develop and try new product ideas so easily. We do get calls from larger companies fairly often, which is a type of customer we’re still not well positioned to serve, but the customers we’re most focused on are entrepreneurial designers who are creating artisan goods and whose needs are growing because of their own success.

What key factors led to your investors’ positive decision to invest?

I think our partners at North Bridge are impressed by how many different industries and products Spoonflower touches on — apparel and home goods, for example, as well as quilting and home sewing. David Jones and Jason Caplain from Bull City Venture Partners, which also participated in the investment, have known us since we started and have long been providers of support and advice. Everyone who looks at Spoonflower walks away impressed at how passionate our customer community is, which is what has allowed us to grow organically to this point.

Will you be hiring? If so how many jobs, where will they be based, and in what areas?

We’ve got about 150 employees now and will almost certainly add 50 more in the next 12 months. Most will be in the Triangle, but we’ll be adding a small team in Berlin over the next year as well.

Any thoughts about moving your HQ or expanding current facilities or both?

This month we’ve expanded our HQ to occupy two additional suites at 2810 Meridian Parkway. While we have really liked having everyone all together in one facility up until now — with customer service and software engineering side by side with our manufacturing operation — space constraints have forced us to move the office staff across the parking lot to make room for more fabric printing, cutting and shipping in the main office. It’s our plan to bring everyone back together when we have to move again in a couple of years. We still host local sewing events in our Greenhouse space and coordinate tours of the printing facilities for students and groups.

What’s the end game for you as co-founders? An exit? A sale? Staying with it for the long haul?

There’s an enormous amount of growth ahead of Spoonflower. We’ve really only scratched the surface of the possibilities for digital manufacturing to transform the textile industry. Over the next five years, I think you’ll see dramatic changes in the way that textiles are produced not just for individuals, but for industries. Gart Davis, my co-founder, and Allison Polish, my other business partner, and I are all working hard to get to the next stage, whatever form that takes.

With this big an investment were you able to keep controlling interest in the firm’s stock?

This round represents a minority investment, and partners Holly Maloney and Russ Pyle from North Bridge will hold two of seven board seats.

Finally, what does your success thus far say about the entrepreneurial strength of the Triangle? Its apparent growing ability to attract capital? Any people in particular you want to thank for what’s happened to date?

The Triangle is absolutely one of the best places in the world to start a business. It has just the right combination of worldliness and relative simplicity that allows entrepreneurs to take risks and new companies to flourish. There’s a strong network, which is anchored by the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, and a great pool of talent. The cost of living and the cost of talent here are both modest by the standards of most tech hubs. We are really fortunate.