CanvasPop has raised $3.3 million in equity and debt funding led by Celtic House Venture Partners and BDC Growth & Transition Capital division. Angel investors, Tobi Lutke and Cody Fauser, CEO and CTO of Shopify (NYSE/TSX: SHOP) respectively, and entrepreneur and philanthropist Richard L’Abbé also participated in the financing.
Ottawa based CanvasPop is a provider of canvas printing and photo gifting services for photographers, digital artists, interior designers and everyday consumers.
“We’re proud to be working with BDC and Celtic house and our team of world class investors,” said Nazim Ahmed, CEO of CanvasPop. “We are energized by the confidence these investors have shown in our business plan, our marketing strategy and our vision to become a leading platform in the canvas printing and photo gifting space.”
Founded in 2009, Ottawa-based CanvasPop offers online photo printing services that allow anyone to print virtually any image, including Instagram, Facebook and iPhone pictures, via CanvasPop’s printing and dedicated distribution facilities in the United States and Canada. To date, CanvasPop has been largely bootstrapped and supported by rounds of debt and mezzanine financing from BDC. The company has been able to organically build a successful business with over 450,000 individual customers.
“We have been impressed with the business that the CanvasPop team has built over the past few years with very little outside capital. We believe that today’s capital investment will allow Canvaspop to significantly expand their product mix and to accelerate their market penetration as the personalized photo printing market continues to grow,” said Robert Shaw, Director at BDC’s Growth & Transition Capital group.
“CanvasPop is at the forefront of the rapidly growing shift from in-store to online shopping as consumers seek out customized products, services and buying experiences,” said David Adderley, Partner at Celtic House. “We are excited to be part of such an innovative company led by two proven entrepreneurs who have successfully built a number of online businesses over the past decade.”
“We’re using this capital to continue expanding our market share and help compete with incumbents such as Shutterfly, Snapfish, Framebridge, Circle Graphics, Art.com, Mixbook, Vistaprint, Photobox, Picanova and many smaller players in a highly fragmented market,” said Adrian Salamunovic, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of CanvasPop. “Ultimately, we will be focusing on growth and innovation in a space that has not seen a lot of innovation. This will include investments into new product categories and streamlining operations, and M&A.”
photo credit: CanvasPop