Imagekind, the art site that describes itself as “a hybrid art gallery, photo-sharing service and a print-on-demand service” has been acquired by CafePress for $15-$20 million in cash and stock, according to VentureBeat.
The site, which was launched two years ago, allows artists to upload and sell framed prints of their pieces, and also allows users to purchase one-off prints of their own images. The company’s blog post on the deal says that the site is home to over 50,000 artists, who will now gain increased exposure from CafePress’s 6.5 million members. ImageKind will continue to operate from its existing website and brand.
In January 2007 we heard rumors that Amazon was looking to acquire the company, but a deal never materialized. Instead, the company wound up raising $2.6 Million in funding in February of that year.
Cook also reports that Zazzle, one of CafePress’s largest competitors, was looking to acquire Imagekind as it moves to launch its own custom framing service. Another major player in this space is Art.com.
Go Cafepress.com. Great quality and products. Wonder if they are going to get rid of the imagekind brand?
This is great news! I love Imagekind. With the power of CafePress, they will be even better
web 2 at its peak….
Cha-Ching !
I never even heard of ImageKind. Yeah I know that’s sad. Sorry.
As an artist, I use both sites. Imagekind provides high-quality art reproductions. CafePress is for coffee cups, tshirts, etc. Two totally different audiences.
I hope I can link my two accounts.
Awesome, I love those services!
Congratulations Cafe Press!
Imagekind is print on demand and it’s really high quality. As an artist I use their site to sell my stuff. It’s much higher quality than other stuff out there. A good move for cafe press - now they are not just about tshirts and coffee mugs.
I wonder how much was cash and how much was stock. Guess that’s a secret.
this is a great step in the development of the art industry and I am extremely glad that I am in on it!
Better things ahead for everyone!
thank you!
Walter
This is really exciting news. I think ImageKind and CafePress make a good couple. ImageKind has the high quality art, CafePress has all sorts of different things you can print onto. It should give consumers a lot of choice to make custom products, and really make them their own.
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Kyle Mulka
Co-Founder, ScrapWalls
http://www.scrapwalls.com
Cafe Press is a pretty big company already but this was a sweet move. Imagekind has more of that cool “etsy” thing about it. They bring a high value brand and product and that Cafe Press (and Zazzle) don’t seem to enjoy. This seems like one of those obvious fits.
Great purchase! This field is really intriguing, reminds me of a similar site ugallery.com
This will be interesting to say the least- one must wonder if this in any way had anything to do with the recent ceiling on shop size and then one must wonder how the affiliate network will proceed. Food for thought.