Nigeria based Printivo, has been mentioned by Tech Crunch as one of the companies in the 20th batch of 500 startups. Yup! Big one for them.
500 startups is a venture capital firm that provides funds to companies in their early stages. As of August 1, 2015, 500 Startups had invested in over 1,200 companies including Canva, Cleanify and Udemy. Of current investments, more than 20% have participated in other incubators, 20-30% are international, and over 60 have been acquired. To date, their biggest exits include $403M acquisition of Makerbot by Stratasys, $350M acquisition of Wildfire by Google, $200M acquisition of Viki by Rakuten, and $117M acquisition of Simple by BBVA.
In addition to this big news, when it comes to launching in new markets, Printivo says it will expand its business model by launching an online marketplace for graphic designers, as well as a service similar to CafePress that will handle orders for companies that want to sell custom goods.
Clearly, Printivo aims to be the Vistaprint of Africa and they are gradually reaching that point.