Creative Hub

Idea

Introduction

Creative Hub was built by Printspace using their long history of success and expertise in the creative industry. Creative Hub is a fast-growing cloud software platform for creative people to store & share files, and collaborate on their projects. The collaboration tools allow users to chat live and draw comments on images, allowing creative teams to work faster and deliver better results.

Creative Hub also enables users to order professional art & photographic prints, or physical 3D prints, which we produce at our own print production facilities in London and Dusseldorf. In 2020 we plan to add New York, with Asia in early 2021.

The Creative Hub cloud software platform and Printspace production facilities are part of the same company, Printspace Studios Limted. Our tech platform Creative Hub, is a part of the solid, profitable and growing Printspace, which a leading online fine art printing service.

Intended impact

Creative Hub is a platform built for the creative industry and is used by photographers, illustrators, artists, designers etc. In the UK alone the creative industry has annual revenues of £100bn and is responsible for 1 in 12 jobs.

Creative Hub enables collaboration. 80% of communication during creative projects is still done using email or phone. This is inefficient and slow. With Creative Hub, users store images and chat and communicate in real-time, with the ability to draw directly onto images to make their point and invite non-users to join the conversation.

Creative Hub users can order fine art and 3D prints, and automate art print sales. Having this creative printing operation not only enables us to deliver the best quality prints, but it also gives us an understanding of how to create software for this industry.

We have started to expand our print production facilities globally. This will help us to build revenue, and add more Creative Hub users.

Substantial accomplishments to date

We launched print operations in London in October 2007. During our first 5 years we focussed on becoming the UK's leading online art & photographic printing company. We started making our own software in 2013, and this opened up new opportunities for us.

In 2019 our revenue was £3.1m, EBITDA was £307k, and net profit was £275k*. So, when you invest in Creative Hub you have the foundation of a solid profitable art printing operation, but with the upside of the fast-growth tech part of the business.

In 2014 we launched Creative Hub to give our users the ability to store their images with us and order fine art prints. In recent years, through a combination of angel investment and re-invested profits we have built a more comprehensive multi-purpose platform for the creative industry.

In October 2019 we launched print operations in Dusseldorf, and so far this has been very successful. Revenues in the first full 4 months of operation were in excess of €100,000 (Nov 19-Feb 20).

In early March 2020 we launched native mobile apps and our live chat and feedback tool for users to work collaboratively on projects in the cloud. Importantly, it is as easy to work with non-users as it is with user, and no-one needs to have an account to get started.

We have a strong base of 40,000 active users, and with our new software features we are preparing for rapid tech-driven growth within the enourmous global creative industry.

Monetisation strategy

As of March we now monetise in four ways:

1. Since 2007: Photographic and art printing. Users pay to order professional photographic and art prints, mainly for exhibitions and art print sales.

2. Since 2017: Automatic fulfilment of print sales. Users can connect their Creative Hub accounts with their e-commerce store, and then we automatically fulfil their art print sales, charging for the print and delivery.

3. 3D printing: Launched March 2020. Users pay to order precision 3D prints in a range of materials.

4. Cloud file storage: this is a new revenue stream for us, launched in March 2020. As of this launch, we now support the storage of all file types, such as video, text, 3D files etc. and users can access and share these via smartphone apps. We charge per Terabyte for storage.

The launch of print production facilities in Dusseldorf and the planned future launches in NYC and Asia will enable us to scale these revenue streams.

Use of proceeds

We will use the proceeds of this round to drive growth through marketing and to launch our New York production facility. If successful, we plan further funding rounds to scale more rapidly to acheive our exit goals.

Subject to a successful New York launch, subsequent rounds will be at higher valuations. Our strategy is to undertake smaller funding rounds, more frequently. If we acheive higher valuations in subquent rounds this will mean less dilution for the investors and the management team.

We build all of our software in-house which means we have direct experience delivering robust and scaleable tools within schedule and budget. Also, our experience in launching production in the UK and Dusseldorf means we are able to forecast this type of project.

The management team's business experience also allows us to understand the contingencies we require in our budgets for scale-out, as we are aware of the issues that may arise.

*source: audited management accounts