The story of Ultiprint begins in a 3-bedroom house in 2012. Our founder, Lukasz, was a factory worker who took an interest in producing and printing garments, he started the business with a single cutter and heat press, working with t-shirts in order to get the business off the ground.
The business was operated out of bedrooms for around a year before Lukasz could be sure of the stability of the company, working with 1 bedroom for a workshop and 1 bedroom for a warehouse there wasn’t much room to grow, but the passion for this industry and the demand was there.
After growing enough to be sure of a long-term investment, just after the company’s first birthday, we moved to a 500sqft facility on Union Street in Plymouth which afforded the opportunity to grow faster, offer more options for our customers, and hire our first employee.
It was too soon after moving to our first commercial location that Lucasz realised the business was growing too fast, and not even a year after moving, we were forced to move again, into a 1000sqft location close by that was much more fitting to the magnitude of business we were seeing at that point.
It was at this 3rd home for the business that we really grew and came into our own – we were able to invest in more cutters, printers and heat presses. Our methods improved as well to meet our newer, higher standards, moving quickly to sublimation and direct-to-garment printing.
As the business continued to grow, Lukasz became a yearly attendant to industry events and print exhibitions, It was there that the spark for UltiPrint as an embroidery company started. Amazed by the highly intricate machinery and process, as well as the polished, high-quality look of the designs, investment in our first embroidery machine was made.
At first, the work for embroidery was sparse and the machine seemed to be a failed investment, but Lukasz believed in and was passionate about this new side of the business, and sure enough, it wasn’t long before he was vindicated.
We had been operating for 6 years before we bought our first embroidery machine in 2018 and after a rocky start, by the end of the year, we were forced to invest in a second machine to keep up with demand. Throughout this time, we continued to grow our team to a complement of four, some of whom are still with us today.
In the coming years, we continued to grow, with plans to move location again in 2020 – until those plans were unfortunately halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, although the desire to further the business and opportunities available to us never stopped.
Once lockdowns were over and we could be certain of a level of stability this side of the pandemic, a huge investment into the business was made when we moved to our current 4000sqft unit. Although a gamble, our new location afforded us the ability to dedicate an entire floor to stock so we can be sure we can ship whatever our customers need as quickly as possible.
There’s also the availability to have a huge workshop in comparison to our previous location, which allowed us to invest heavily in more machinery to help with scaling, shortly after moving we purchased 3 additional embroidery machines along with our state-of-the-art 6-head industrial machine to keep up with demand well into the future.
After 10 years in business, the future looks brighter than ever, and with less than a year in our current location, it seems more and more like it was exactly the investment the company needed. Everyone here is truly excited to see what the next years bring, and we hope you are just as excited as we are to join us on this journey.