Two companies that connect artisan makers with retailers and customers announced large funding rounds last week.
The wholesale marketplace Faire raised $100 million while the wholesale and licensing business Minted said they raised $208 million.
Both firms connect retailers, who are often small independents, with small and solopreneur maker businesses.
Faire reports having "15,000 stores actively buying on the platform — more retail locations than Walgreens, Walmart, Sephora, and Nordstrom have combined — as well as more than 2,000 makers fulfilling orders."
Minted is an online marketplace for printed goods, like wedding invitations, greeting cards, notebooks, stationery and wall art. The company sources the designs and products from independent illustrators, textile designers, painters and other artists.
We're hardly surprised that these firms are growing rapidly and attracting capital. We've been following the trend towards what we call The New Artisan Economy for over decade.
The trends we reported on in 2008 as driving the growth of the new artisan economy still hold true today:
1. Growing numbers of consumers are looking for unique, unusual, personalized or locally produced products.
2. The Internet and online marketing has made it much easier to find or be found by people interested in buying niche products.
3. Technology is lowering the costs of serving niche markets and making artisans able to compete with even the largest of firms.
Both Minted and Faire are excellent examples of all three trends.
BTW, so is Etsy.
It too is doing well connecting artisan makers with customers. As the chart below shows, Etsy's stock is up 270% YTD and the company is worth $6.5 billion.
We believe we're still at the beginning of The New Artisan Economy. See our Artisan Economy section for more on this topic.
Disclosure: the partners at Emergent Research happily own shares in Etsy.
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