NR from printCafe March 15, 2000Mar. 15 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/KRTBN)--What better use for the electronic capabilities of the Internet than to make it easier and more economical to slap ink on paper?
That's the thinking behind printCafe Inc., a Strip District company that provides Web-based software to help link printers and their customers. Betting investors will buy into the concept, the company yesterday filed to sell stock to the public for the first time. It told the Securities and Exchange Commission it expects the initial offering to raise as much as $143.7 million, though it did not specify how big a stake it will sell or the price of the shares. The company, formerly known as Prograph Systems, employs about 200 people in Pittsburgh and almost 500 across the
country. Prograph was begun in 1987 by Carnegie Mellon University graduate Marc Olin, who developed a printing supply-chain software
program while a college intern at Newsweek magazine. Olin, 35, is now president of printCafe.
Prograph merged in October with nth Degree Software, a Bellevue, Wash.-based company that had been its partner for the previous two years,
helping to develop e-commerce technology for the printing industry. In January, Prograph merged with the Internet division of Creo Products, a
Canadian printing technology company, to form printCafe.
Since then, printCafe has been on a wild shopping spree, purchasing five printing-industry software companies for more than $135 million in cash
and stock. printCafe and its new holdings lost a combined $56.7 million on revenue of $50.6 million last year. The company's Web product, also known as printCafe, allows print buyers to estimate and order jobs; track their projects; and communicate with multiple parties throughout the process. It allows printers and suppliers -- who pay printCafe to use the Web system -- to manage their supply chain electronically and bill customers online.
The company's customers include American Airlines, Andersen Consulting, Costco, Readers Digest Canada Ltd., and Time Warner. Mellon Ventures II Limited Partnership of Pittsburgh owns 6.6 percent of printCafe's Class A shares and 4.4 percent of its Class B shares.