How Teespring started
Walker Williams and Evan Stites-Clayton, who met at Brown University, founded Teespring in 2011. Their model let anyone sell custom T-shirts through a pre-order campaign: if enough buyers committed, the shirts were printed and shipped, and the seller never had to buy inventory upfront.
Venture growth and the creator pivot
Teespring went through Y Combinator and raised venture rounds in 2014, including a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz and a $35 million Series B led by Khosla Ventures. It later shifted from Facebook-ad-driven sellers to established creators. In 2018 it became a launch partner for the YouTube merch shelf, which shows a creator's merchandise beneath their videos.
Spring and Amaze
In 2021 Teespring rebranded as Spring. The business became part of Amaze Software, which runs Spring by Amaze and a Teespring Marketplace. In March 2025, Fresh Vine Wine completed its acquisition of Amaze Software and renamed itself Amaze Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: AMZE). Aaron Day is CEO.
Financials today
Amaze reported about $1.97 million in revenue for 2025. In the second quarter of 2026, revenue rose about 32% from the prior quarter to about $0.6 million, and the net loss narrowed to about $4.4 million. Management says more "step-changes" are still needed and is betting on the Amaze Commerce platform, affiliate tools built with BIGtoken, and media distribution.
Competitors
Spring competes with Printful, Printify, Fourthwall, Shopify-based merch stores and Merch by Amazon.
