Dueling stamps.

Two Google Inc. board members are funding a custom printing company, Zazzle Inc., that's aimed squarely at the personalized stamp franchise of Santa Monica-based Stamps.com Inc.

Palo Alto-based Zazzle, funded with $16 million from Silicon Valley venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures, has a content library with more than 500,000 images, including Walt Disney Co. characters. They can be used for customized T-shirts, posters and, thanks to a partnership with office-mail powerhouse Pitney Bowes Inc., postage stamps.

Original Google investors John Doerr, a Kleiner Perkins partner, and Ram Shriram, founder of Sherpalo, will become directors at Zazzle.

Stamps.com leads the market for customized postage with its PhotoStamps product, re-launched in May.

Stamford, Conn.-based Pitney Bowes also won authorization from the U.S. Postal Service to create personalized stamps, but until now has been more focused on office-postage products.

"It's a space that we created and invented," said Stamps.com Chief Executive Ken McBride. "It's not unusual to see Pitney follow us."

As if to emphasize the new rivalry, word of Zazzle's funding came out the same day that Stamps.com announced a partnership with CafePress.com Inc., an online marketplace of shops offering customized T-shirts, mugs, bumper-stickers and postcards.

Zazzle and CafePress are competitors, with CafePress claiming 2.3 million members and Zazzle claiming nearly 1 million. "I'm not sure if they're No. 2 or No. 3, but it's an industry where No. 1 has a lot of advantages, so we think CafePress is the right partner," McBride said.

Staff reporter Hilary Potkewitz can be reached by phone at [phone], ext. 226, or by e-mail at [e-mail]