Although the idea is not new, investment still keeps flowing into startups offering custom products like t-shirts. Threadless.com’s parent company skinnyCorp yesterday announced that it has secured a minority investment from Insight Venture Partners. Threadless started by Chicago based designer Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart in January 2000.
Threadless is basically an on-going t-shirt design competition. Users can submit their design ideas, which if get an high enough score from the Threadless users, are printed and sold at the site. Typically Threadless is receiving more than 600 design submission per week out of which only 4-6 are chosen for production. Each winning designer receives $2000 in cash and prizes. Powered by the user collaboration and team work, Threadless site has a refreshing outlook with an amazing range of designs.
However this custom-design market has number of well funded startups. We have the market leader Cafepress which claims to have more than 2.3 million users. Cafepress which started in 1999 has venture backing from Sequoia Capital and PacRim Venture Partners. Than we have the Palo Alto based Zazzle which has the backing of Kleiner Perkins and Sherpalo Ventures. Zazzle has received $16 million in funding in its Series A and claims to have Zazzle nearly 1 million members. Another player Spreadshirt offers its customized products services in Europe. Last September Spreadshirt had received and undisclosed amount of funding from Accel Partners. And than we have the newest entrant GoodStorm that offers customized t-shirts with a dose of non-profit ideas to it’s business model.
Now I am not sure if combines effect of these companies is part of the problems faced by major retailers like Gap. Looking at recent news about Gap on Google Finance doesn’t paint a rosy picture about Gap’s future.
Links:
Threadless
Cafepress
Zazzle
Spreadshirt
GoodStorm
March 20, 2007 at 10:51 am |
[...] Threadless: The startup offering custom products like t-shirts that I had written about few months back has opened a store – ThreadlessKids.com. Nothing much to add about the new launch since the name gives out everything. Tags:Share and Enjoy: [...]
May 9, 2007 at 10:50 pm |
[...] ChipIn doesn’t have to worry about a new competitor ’cause CottonCampus is far from the world of widgets and viral distribution. Instead they are acting as a middle layer in the fundraising cycle by managing all the activity for running the show. The idea seems more of a mashup between the custom t-shirt concept, and fundraising. Checkout the details at CottonCampus. [...]