Lanham, Md.-based custom framing tech startup Framebridge closed a new $9 million funding round led by SWaN & Legend Venture Partners and including previous investors New Enterprise Associates and Revolution Ventures. The new funding brings Framebridge's total funding to about $20.5 million.
"We're five times bigger than last year," Framebridge CEO Susan Tynan told DC Inno in an interview. "We knew we had investor support and could look for additional funding without slowing down. It's exciting that we ended up getting another local investor."
The new funding fits in with Framebridge's scaling plans, which includes a new 100,000 square-foot framing facility in Kentucky that goes live this week. The new framing studio is one of the big projects headed up by recently hired former Zappos and Teespring executive Anthony Vicars.
"The [Kentucky studio] will help make us more efficient," Tynan said. "On every single level we continue to improve."
Along with filling the Kentucky space, the new money is earmarked for new marketing and sales work. Tynan said the company is keen to get word of Framebridge out to more people who may not be aware of the company, which ships anywhere in the country.
"Our ambition is to be a household name," Tynan said. "We want to build out new marketing channels and show people that service online doesn't mean you get less, if anything you get more."
Though SWaN & Legend led the funding, Tynan said the other investors contributed "several million dollars each." As part of the deal, SWaN & Legend managing director Fred Schaufeld will join the Framebridge board. Coming just nine months after the last funding, the new money suggests that the investors have a lot of confidence in the company.
"A VC pitch is never easy, but the fundamentals of our business continue to get better," Tynan said. "We're growing our capability to be flexible for the holidays and filling up higher numbers of orders all the time."
That includes the recent has gallery wall concierge service created last year, which lets users coordinate with Framebridge experts to put together a kind of collage combo of art and personal photos. But, it's the streamlining and speeding up of the entire process, both digital and physical, that will put Framebridge on everyone's wall, according to Tynan. For her, Framebridge applying the lessons of the digital economy to a traditional industry like picture framing is what attracts investors, while the quality of the work is what keeps customers coming back.
"We know how special these pictures are to our customers," Tynan said. "They deserve our best."
