Vistaprint buys embroidery company Soft Sight

27 Jan '10

2 min read

Vistaprint N.V. the company that provides high-impact personalized products and services for small businesses and the home, announced it has acquired Soft Sight, Inc., a small, privately held company based in Endicott, NY, USA, in an all-cash transaction for $6.5 million. The acquisition was completed on December 30, 2009 and will enable Vistaprint to deliver custom-embroidered products to its small business and consumer customers.

Soft Sight has developed a sophisticated software capability for automatically rendering stitch patterns from custom designs uploaded to its website. Soft Sight's innovative and patented automation systems enable an end-user's embroidery artwork to be uploaded and embroidery designs to be instantly previewed and modified online. This drives its ability to provide high-quality custom embroidered products in low quantities at low prices.

"We are excited about this acquisition," said Robert Keane, Vistaprint's chief executive officer. "This was a capability that Vistaprint was interested in developing, and by acquiring Soft Sight, we will be able to get to market faster than we could have by developing the software on our own. In fact, we believe that by combining Soft Sight's embroidery capability and expertise with Vistaprint's powerful content matching, direct marketing expertise, and large global customer base, we have the potential over time to become one of the leading global players in low-volume custom embroidery."

Approximately 15 Soft Sight employees have joined Vistaprint, including David Goldman, Soft Sight's chief executive officer, and Nirav Patel, Soft Sight's technology lead.

Vistaprint plans to launch the new embroidered product line to its customer base in the first half of fiscal 2011, and therefore expects no revenue from embroidered products before then. Vistaprint and the Soft Sight team have begun to integrate the Soft Sight technology into Vistaprint's platform for marketing, online graphic design and manufacturing. Vistaprint plans to discuss this acquisition in conjunction with its scheduled earnings announcement on January 28, 2010.

Vistaprint N.V.

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