Redbubble Agrees to Buy TeePublic
Redbubble is buying competitor TeePublic for $41 million, strengthening its position in the U.S. The deal is expected close in early November.
New York-based TeePublic and Redbubble will be run as separate operations for the time being; TeePublic CEO Josh Abramson remains with the company. COO Adam Schwartz will eventually replace Abramson and report to Redbubble CEO Barry Newstead.
Abramson founded TeePublic in 2013 as an online community for t-shirt designers; it generates about $20 million in annual revenue. TeePublic’s business is similar to Rebubble’s in that t-shirt designs are submitted by artists, designers and celebrities and curated through crowdsourcing. The company offers many of same categories as Redbubble, including apparel, cellphone cases, homegoods and stickers.
“This will give us a larger reach and more scale in enabling rights holders and artists to protect their works on the Internet,” says Rebbubble SVP Eric Morse.
Redbubble has gradually been building out its licensing business since hiring Morse last year as SVP for content partnerships and general manager of global licensing. It currently has agreements with Zag Animation’s “Miraculous – Tales of Ladybug and Car Noir”, Temple Street Productions’ “Orphan Black”, Cartoon Network’s “Rick and Morty”, EmojiOne and Zorro Productions’ “Zorro”.
Red Bubble has opened three new fulfillment locations in the U.S. and had 225 employees as of June 30.
The acquisition is Redbubble’s first since Newstead replaced co-founder Martin Hosking as CEO earlier this year. The deal comes as the company reported its annual net loss widened 33% to $10.7 million for the year ended June 30, while revenue jumped 29.7 percent to $182.2 million.
Contact:
Redbubble, Eric Morse, SVP Content Partnerships and General Mgr. Global Licensing, 415-644-5181, eric.morse@redbubble.com
