Printio.ru attracts 18 VCs in its first round of funding

An online service for custom printed clothes, souvenirs and printed products Printio.ru announced the closing of its series A funding round in the amount of $700K received from 18 venture investors. Attracted funds will be spent on the product range expansion and a regional network creation.

The feature of Printio.ru is the ability to create unique printing designs online or place a ready image on any item. In general, Printio.ru is a cloud service which platform is based on HTML5 editor, which provides a realistic view of goods, its own graphical format and a store where you can put your designs on sale.

The round was led by known Russian Internet entrepreneurs, such as Yegor Rudy (the founder of Eruditor Group and an investor of Foodik and LinguaLeo), Igor Ryabenky (an investor of LinguaLeo and other startups), Alexander Alpern and Sergey Ivanov (the founders of Webinar.ru), Vladimir Sych (the founder of ABBY Language Services), Anthony Capt (a partner of Bauinvest), and Russian Venture Fund Venture Angels and the U.S. Apaxys Ventures.

Printio.ru offers a new concept of work in the market of printing, which is over $20B in Russia alone, according to RVC. Russian printing market is highly fragmented and is not represented on the Internet. Great intuitive interface and developed processes make Printio.ru an attractive resource for both end-users and business partners, - Igor Ryabenky says, an investor of Printio.ru and more than 10 online projects.

Anthony Capt, a partner of BauInvest, told about his first investment in Russia: As a foreign investor, I compared Printio.ru first with similar businesses in other countries, and then I decided to invest since this technology is far superior to foreign counterparts, and the founders build the business by western standards.

Printio.ru service was officially launched in July, 2012 by three founders Alexander Shamis, Maksim Chernyak and Yury Zaitsev. Jury s a recognized expert in javascript and HTML5. Maksim is an experienced architect and engineer involved in the development of Ruby-systems at such companies as Madmimi, Aptana, Artstor. Alexander is a co-founder of Foodik.ru (now it is a part of the international holding Delivery Hero) and Webinar.ru.