YPP has made a number of board appointments and plans to move to 24-hour production on the back of a £1m investment from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF). The money will be used predominantly to facilitate the commercial launch of its latest venture - Custom Gifts - in March.
YPP - which owns Your Print Partner and online print providers The Santa Sacks Co and Your Promo - aims to change the face of the personalised gifts with Custom Gifts, a dedicated e-commerce operation that offers hundreds of print customisable licensed products from Warner Brothers, Disney, major UK football clubs and other familiar brands.
Jordan Lavender from Foresight Group has joined joins the YPP board as investor director. A new chairman and commercial director are set to be appointed in the coming weeks. As part of the new investment, YPP has also welcomed Chris Cheeseman to the board as group creative director after five years with the company, having started as a graphic designer. The promotion recognises his input into YPP, which has achieved year-on-year growth.
Seven new jobs have been created already at YPP, joining the company’s sales and design teams, with another ten staff expected to join the production team shortly as 24-hour production schedules are introduced.
“We had an ambitious and exciting plan for growth, and one that required substantial funding” said YPP CEO Stuart Maclaren. “Over the course of six months we went through a wide range of investment raising options, from crowdfunding through to overseas venture capitalists, so today I am truly delighted to have been able to secure this investment for the group. Your Print Partner is now seeing its largest ever volume of orders coming in, with more than 3000 orders shipping every week. Our aim is to continue to allow Your Print Partner to flourish, whilst using our print and production expertise to take on the growing UK personalised gifts market with Custom Gifts. We see a real opportunity to change this market, just as we have done for a number of years in the wide format fabric printing sector.”
