Retail/Wholesale: MARC KATZ

After fighting to stay in business amid the height of the pandemic, Custom Ink is growing again.

In January, the Fairfax-based online custom apparel company acquired Printfection, a “swag management” platform that allows companies and organizations to easily create and manage custom promotional items like tote bags. The acquisition fits nicely with another company Custom Ink acquired in November: Swag.com, a website that helps companies create custom promotional products.

“In bringing together Printfection’s powerful enterprise solution with Swag.com’s awesome self-service model and Custom Ink’s own robust platform and scale, we’ve assembled a pretty incredible combination,” Katz said in a statement.

In addition to headquarters in Fairfax, Custom Ink has operating facilities in Charlottesville as well as in Nevada, Texas and California. A cute octopus named Inky serves as the company’s mascot.

Katz, who graduated from Harvard with a degree in physics, founded Custom Ink in 2000 with a couple of friends from college shortly after deciding he wanted to be an entrepreneur more than he wanted to work on Wall Street.

Swag.com ranked No. 368 on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies in 2021.