Backing Printify, the world's leading print-on-demand marketplace
All venture investors have an anti-portfolio — a list of the startups they had an opportunity to invest in but decided not to. Printify has been high on our list since we passed on the chance to make a small investment during the early days of Fund I. As “green” VCs, we focused too much on meeting the “standard” investment criteria and not enough on simply backing amazing founder teams. Since then, we have supported the founders James Berdigans and Artis Kehris as much as possible without being an investor, in their quest to build the world's leading print-on-demand marketplace.
Fortunately, sometimes life gives you chances to fix mistakes, albeit with a penalty. Such is the case here: we are delighted that James Berdigans, CEO of Printify, gave Change Ventures an opportunity to join their Series A round led by Index Ventures and a great list of co-investors, including long-time backers Gokul Rajaram and Bling Capital, along with the H&M Group, Virgin Group, plus the founders of TransferWise, Vinted, Squarespace and RedHat.
The pandemic has accelerated e-commerce in general and Printify's service enables over 2 million merchants to set up a merchandise store without pre-ordering and printing any goods. The marketplace connects these sellers with a worldwide network of suppliers who print and deliver the orders directly. By operating a marketplace, Printify offers a wider selection (over 370 products) than any other print-on-demand provider and can match orders to suppliers in over 100 locations around the globe.
James and Printify are also leaders in the local ecosystem showing what “pay it forward” means for building a flourishing startup community. They were an active participant in the successful effort to adopt the world's most attractive stock option regulations in Latvia, according to Index Ventures Rewarding Talent report, and are involved in bringing great speakers to the region through their Printify Tech Talks meetups and their continuing efforts to make it easier to help talented individuals immigrate to work at Latvian startups.
Welcome to the Change Ventures family, James and the Printify team!
Andris K. Berzins
Managing Partner
