CafePress Completes $30M Acquisition of EZ Prints

CafePress lets customers create and sell custom products ranging from t-shirts to water bottles, featuring everything from their favorite musicians to their favorite presidential candidates. The online service has now completed its acquisition of EZ Prints.

The Louisville, KY-based company’s $30-million investment will give them an online store that allows customers to upload pictures and create custom prints and products of them. CafePress could pay up to $10 million more based on the agreement, based on revenue growth and other performance measures.

“We have seen strong growth in our large corporate shops business and the addition of EZ Prints to CafePress brings a robust, deployable, cloud-based software solution that accelerates CafePress' vision of enabling customization for corporate partners across the web," CafePress CEO Bob Marino said in October. “Along with technology, we believe this transaction will enhance revenue and add scale to our business, and the combined organization will amass significant brand power. CafePress has a strong track record of driving significant growth with the companies we have acquired and we look forward to working with the talented EZ Prints team to capitalize on the tremendous customization opportunities within e-commerce.”

CafePress has gained particular visibility this election year, with users creating merchandise supporting their candidates, both incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. They’ve created everything from coffee mugs to neckties to underwear sporting political messages.

"CafePress and EZ Prints have enjoyed a mutually beneficial business relationship, having previously partnered on projects for Sky Mall and other leading companies. We are excited that our technology – ezp builder, ezp store and ezp tools – can now be components of The World's Customization Engine, allowing for customization to take place on any website. Our corporate partner business, ezp services, is the fastest growing segment of our business, and we believe we will benefit from the strong synergies of bringing our operations under the CafePress umbrella," EZ Prints CEO Wes Herman added.