Cimpress (asi/162149) is ramping up its design capabilities.

The Dundalk, Ireland-headquartered Top 40 distributor (asi/162149), parent company of Vistaprint and National Pen, has acquired 99designs, a global network of freelance graphic designers.

99designs, which is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia with additional offices in Oakland, CA and Berlin, Germany, will operate as a part of Vistaprint and as a standalone brand. Patrick Llewellyn, CEO of 99designs, will continue to lead the network. He’ll report to Robert Keane, CEO of both Cimpress and Vistaprint.

Robert Keane, CEO of Cimpress and Vistaprint

“Vistaprint plans for significant post-acquisition investment to expand the 99designs team and to accelerate the pace of technology and product development for a large range of freelancer-powered design services to help small businesses,” Cimpress said in a statement.

99designs directly employs about 115 people while hosting a worldwide network of about 150,000 graphic designers and other freelancers. The platform connects designers with small businesses that desire logos and other graphics for everything from printed marketing materials like business cards and brochures to a gamut of promotional products. Vistaprint is a billion-dollar e-commerce-driven business that prints and fulfills such items. 99designs also has solutions that include web and app design.

Vistaprint has in-house design capabilities, but the company needed to step up such services to meet rampant demand, executives said.

“In order to become a more complete marketing partner to our customers we are augmenting our internal teams with 99designs’ wide-reaching community of talented freelance professional designers who are experts for more sophisticated design projects,” said Vistaprint Chief Marketing Officer Ricky Engelberg.

Engelberg continued: “As businesses grow, the complexity and importance of their design needs also grow. To meet these needs as professionally and seamlessly as possible, we sought a partner that not only brings a scalable network of high-quality talent for design services, but who shares our vision for providing best-in-class solutions to business owners throughout their entrepreneurial journey.”

With estimated 2019 North American promotional product revenue of $477 million, Cimpress ranked 6th on Counselor’s most list of the largest distributors in the industry.

Overall, Cimpress’ total global revenue declined 10% during the corporation’s fiscal 2020 to $2.48 billion. Vistaprint revenue was down 11% to $1.34 billion. National Pen, a former Top 40 distributor before being acquired by Cimpress, saw fiscal 2020 revenue fall 14% to $299.47 billion.