DURHAM, N.C. - Spoonflower, a venture capital funded design sourcing website, will extend its services to the production of customized, occasional chairs with digitally printed upholstered chairs in September 2016, linking designers to producers through a new website, Roostery.com. The market is estimated at $16.7 billion
Spoonflower has developed a large marketplace of crowd-sourced designs with home décor to create one-of-a-kind statement pieces that reflect individual style. Currently, the website lets customers select from 350,000 designs, or upload their own, and have them custom made into gifts and home décor products. In September, this capability will be extended to furniture for the first time, with an offering of occasional chairs and headboards.
Roostery products are created using Spoonflower fabric, printed in Durham, North Carolina, and made-on-demand in the United States. Roostery provides the technology to produce the products.
"Today when you walk into major retailers, you're subject to fleeting, seasonal trends and pre-selected color palettes," explains Allison Sloan Polish, President of Spoonflower and Roostery. "But if you've decided to paint your dining room purple, you may not be able to find statement pieces that reflect your individual design choices. Roostery puts the power in the hands of the design-lover."
Polish says more than 200 different designs are uploaded to Spoonflower ever hour, and more than 2,000 different fabric items are sold each day with 100,000 yards printed per month. "These are real people submitting real designs, an international collective of designers, of sorts," shares Anjana Mohanty, director of Roostery.
Last year, Spoonflower received a $25 million minority investment led by North Bridge Growth Equity, a leading growth equity firm based in Boston, with participation by Durham-based Bull City Venture Partners. Spoonflower used this infusion of capital to increase the pace of innovation and API, the newest of which is Roostery. In 2015, online furniture and home décor sales amounted to $26.7 billion, having grown from $20.4 billion in 2014. The market is projected to continue a 10% growth rate through 2018.
Spoonflower www.spoonflower.com lets users design, print and sell their own fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap. Founded in 2008, it was the world's first web-based service for custom fabric creation and says it is the world's largest community of independent fabric designers. With over 350,000 designs for fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap, and more added every day, the Spoonflower Marketplace is also the world's largest design collection of its kind. The newest brands in the Spoonflower family are Sprout Patterns and Roostery.
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