Digital printing startup, Printivo, has closed a six-figure seed round from early-stage VC firm, EchoVC Partners. to help it broaden the company’s product range, increase headcount, accelerate customer acquisition and scale the business.
In a statement, Olu’yomi Ojo, Printivo Co-Founder and CEO says, “Securing institutional seed financing means we can accelerate the growth of our online print services & community platform and achieve the ambitious targets we have set for ourselves, as we transform an industry that has, until now, lacked digital infrastructure, investment and innovation.”
With the investment, Printivo is poised to capitalise on and grow Nigeria’s $200M print market by strengthening it’s online ordering and direct delivery and distribution and tap into Africa’s print industry currently estimated to grow to $9B annually by 2016.
Just one year-old Printivo provides the only fully automated online print service for over 3,000 customers with corporate stock collateral, such as business cards, letterheads and notepads for brands such as Google, Uber, Samsung, DHL and Etisalat and fulfilling 1,000 orders per month.
In EchoVC will be its partner and investor to help Printivo scale the eCommerce business across Nigeria and Africa. EchoVC sees print in Africa as one of the continent’s ‘iceberg micro-economies’, a below-radar but very large and viable industry with enormous scope for growth.
Printivo is also rapidly growing its consumer base, with a focus in particular on Nigeria’s multi-million dollar wedding industry with revenues rapidly growing at 50% quarter-over-quarter.
According to Wale Ayeni, Investment Director at EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund: “The lightning speed at which Printivo has changed Nigerian SMEs’ print purchasing habits and built a customer base that runs into the thousands is impressive, and was a key driver in our decision to invest.”
Printivo will help solve the lack of innovation in the print industry in Africa’s largest economy such as the high cost of printing, lack of graphic designers, poor customer service and time-intensive ordering practices, making top quality printing all but unaffordable for the super-majority of small businesses. The founders have also spent their entire lives in the print industry.
