Think Outside the Rectilinear – February 2025 M&A Activity

SOURCE - The Target Report

As we have noted in prior Target Reports and emphasized in our Annual Review, the salad days for wide-format printing are over. Digitally printed banners and wraps are no longer unique, flatbed printing devices are ubiquitous, and the high margins that came with being an early entrant in the market for large inkjet prints have been compressed by competition. Entry-level equipment is no longer excessively expensive, flatbed cutters and other finishing technologies are widely installed.

Differentiation in the wide-format business has moved from those that had first-mover advantage to businesses such as those that have perfected more complex online direct-to-customer systems, robust planning and installation capabilities, or value-added services such as printing on canvas for use as home or office décor. The ability to print, stretch, and mount printed fabrics in a multitude of formats, venues, and environments is one such specialization.

Moss Inc, a wide-format fabric printing company based in Franklin, Illinois, has grown to in excess of $100 million in revenue by staying focused almost exclusively on the unique niche application of graphic tensioned fabric installations. That growth has come via the serial execution of acquisitions, each expanding its geographic range and breadth of applications, but remaining laser-focused on the use of printed fabrics held in tension.

With financial backing from private equity firm EagleTree Capital, Moss Inc. acquired Rocket Graphics. The acquired company, based in Watford, UK, is Moss’ second purchase of a UK-based company, and expands on its European presence, which also includes operations in Germany and Poland. Rocket Graphics prints super-wide format visuals for stadium events, trade exhibitions, stage productions, retail displays and other large graphic applications. It is no accident that the company boasts of its extensive installation capabilities as the selling owner started his career as an installer. Onsite installation of very large projects is evidently deep in the corporate DNA, which was clearly a driver in the matchup with Moss.

That acquisition followed closely on the heals of the announcement in December 2024 that Moss Inc. had acquired Stretch Shapes, an innovative company based in Eugene, Oregon, that brings the use of tensioned fabrics to a whole new level. In addition to the usual and expected use of printed fabrics for branding, the acquired company uses stretched fabric to create borderless projection screens, colorful wall panels, event entrances, ceiling panel sails, and unique outdoor shade structures.

From Pop-Up Tents to Architectural Icons

Bill Moss, an artist and industrial designer, forever changed outdoor recreation with the invention of the pop-up tent in 1955. After a stint in the US Navy, he pursued an education in art at the famous Cranbrook Academy of Art in his home state of Michigan. After graduation, Moss landed his dream job as an illustrator for Ford Times, a travel magazine produced by the Ford Motor Company. An avid outdoorsman, duck hunter, and ice fisherman, he was frustrated by the heavy canvas upside-down-V-shaped pup tent design that dates back to the civil war. His industrial design training kicked in and what emerged was the now ubiquitous lightweight fabric tent held in tension by flexible support poles.

Moss was convinced that he had come up with a hit design and cleverly named his invention the Pop-Tent. In a burst of enthusiasm, he patented the concept and proceeded to order 1,000 PopTents. To his great disappointment, his first customer, outfitter company Abercrombie and Fitch, placed an order for one Pop-Tent. Things changed for the better when Life Magazine ran an article, with photos, of Bill and his family camping out in a roomy and easy-to-assemble PopTent. The tent was a hit. Many elegant beautiful new tent designs followed in the ensuing decades, along with articles in Time Magazine, Esquire, and GQ. Tensioned fabric structures designed by Moss were exhibited in the Louvre and the Smithsonian, and his 1978 Stargazer Tent was placed in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

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