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Learning From Print eProcurement Providers



WhatTheyThink has a press release reporting new funding for httprint, the San Francisco-based print e-procurement firm. There are only a handful of these firms left and it will be interesting to see what they do over the next year -- especially in light of the e-procurement portals being deployed by major manufacturers like Heidelberg and Creo.

Three things stand out in this release:

  • A primary investor in this $12 million round is Bertelsmann AG. The German media giant already has a significant presence in the printing industry through its Arvato group and is one of the largest purchasers of printing and related services. I don't know how much of the $12 million BAG put in, but it is unlikely they could have built a solid e-procurement system for much less than their probable $6-$10 million investment. This purchase now gives BAG a way to standardize around a single e-Procurement system and to integrate it with their other advertising and print workflow systems.
  • With this infusion from BAG, httprint gets some insulation from the dangerous competition emerging from Heidelberg and Creo. As I noted in my report from On Demand, Heidelberg's HeiPort and Creo's InSite portal should strike fear in the hearts of print e-procurement pure-play companies like Printable, printChannel, and httprint. These offerings are going to be robust, affordable, and have the advantage of coming from trusted providers to the printing industry.

  • Finally, httprint is using some of this money to acquire German software vendor Publishers Market AG, a provider of advertising workflow software. While the website is in German (and therefore incomprehensible to me), it appears the company focuses on providing software that will let advertisers manage both content and business transaction data in a single system. Such a system makes sense as an expansion strategy, taking httprint out of the e-procurement pure-play arena. It also makes sense strategically for BAG, who may have had a hand in making this deal come off.

The print e-procurement space has undergone a rapid consolidation, and it isn't over. As the major hardware vendors and industry ERP providers add such services to their base offerings, the smaller e-procurement pure-play vendors are going to have to reach out for new markets to survive. httprint is the first to do so. It will be intersting to see who follows.

-- twf
June 18,2002