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Pressplane Raises $1.7 Million, Stays Stealthy

Kelly Smith is at it again. The co-founder of Seattle-based Curious Office Partners and Imagekind (which was sold to CafePress in July) announced today that his latest startup, Pressplane, has closed a Series A financing round worth $1.7 million. The round was led by Second Avenue Partners and includes a who’s who of investors with ties to Seattle, such as Mika Salmi of MTV and AtomFilms, Rich Barton of Expedia and Zillow, Erik Blachford from Expedia, Andy Liu of BuddyTV, Alex Algard of Whitepages, Geoff Entress of Madrona Venture Group, Andy Sack of Founder’s Co-op (and an Xconomist), Adrian Hanauer of Curious Office, John Cunningham, and Doug Rowan, formerly of Corbis.

Smith isn’t saying what Pressplane is working on yet, except that it’s another “buy and sell marketplace” like Imagekind, this time “more around designers and creative content serving businesses,” according to his blog. Pressplane shares office space near Pioneer Square with Wishpot and Italy-based H-Farm, companies we’ve profiled in the past week.

There has been a lot of buzz around Pressplane—much of it based on Smith’s track record as an entrepreneur. Last month, for instance, Tony Wright of RescueTime listed Smith’s latest project as one of the top three Seattle-area startups he’d hypothetically invest in. Alas, Wright’s name is not on the list of Pressplane’s backers; he has been busy closing his own Series A round, which was also announced this week.

Gregory T. Huang is the Editor of Xconomy Seattle. You can e-mail him at gthuang@xconomy.com or call 206-624-2249.

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