Imagekind founder raises $1.7M for another marketplace

Venture Beat — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:46:03 -0700

After launching Imagekind, an online marketplace for buying and selling original and reprinted artwork, then selling it to CafePress, founder Kelly Smith is back at the drawing board. The latest project is called PressPlane, and Smith has just informed us of its $1.7 million initial round of financing, led by Second Avenue Partners. Also contributing to this round is MTV President Mika Salmi, Expedia founder Rich Barton, and Erik Blachford, former Expedia CEO, among other angel investors.

So what will PressPlane do? There’s no telling yet, but it will likely be another marketplace for buying and selling products or services of some sort. According to Smith, PressPlane will be similar to Imagekind, “but more around designers and creative content serving businesses.” While PressPlane won’t be in direct competition with Imagekind, the new startup will be applying much of what was learned with the development of Imagekind.

No word on when PressPlane will be ready for the public, but a marketplace around the creative end of business is something that a handful of startups are beginning to tackle. For instance, Crowdspring is an online marketplace for creatives to promote themselves and sell their design work directly to clients.