Bull City Ventures is one of two disclosed investors in a $25 million round of financing for Durham startup Spoonflower. Co-founder David Jones talks about why he and partner Jason Caplain did the deal.
“We had known Stephen and Gart almost since inception of Spoonflower 5+ years ago and had been working to find the right opportunity to partner with them for several years,” Jones tells The Skinny.
“Spoonflower is the market leader in digital on-demand printing to fabric and they have an incredible following of crafty entrepreneurs that design and order fabric from them.
“Jason and I continue to feel they have an incredible opportunity for growth in a field that is just beginning and will be the next wave of textile innovation.”
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.
Boston-based North Bridge Growth Equity ($3.8 billion under management) was impressed enough to invest along with Bull City. It’s the first North Carolina deal for North Bridge, which is good news for Triangle tech startups who are always looking for additional sources of capital.
However, the deal also clearly shows that there is Triangle-based funding available for the right deals. And Spoonflower’s leaders have patiently played the startup game.
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 North Bridge at the CED Tech Venture conference in 2014.
Bull City broke onto the southeast investment scene with a $26 million fund just over a year ago. So how much did Jones and Caplain invest in Spoonflower?
“We’d prefer not to discuss amounts,” Jones says, “but it was a significant investment from our fund.”
Jones, who joins the Spoonflower board as an advisor as part of the deal, says he likes what he sees in the startup’s technology – and the potential for growth.
“The know-how the Spoonflower team has developed in digital fabric over the last few years is second to none,” Jones declares.
“Several textile printer manufacturers have devoted significant time and technology to helping bring a scalable solution to on-demand fabric to Spoonflower. Spoonflower has a super strong customer and designer following that continues to grow at astronomical rates organically.”
