Online Marketplace For Designer Merchandise Paintcollar Raises Funding

Paintcollar, a marketplace for designer merchandise created by artists, raised its bridge round of funding. This round is a part of funding that Paintcollar is raising via investment platform Applyifi.

Mumbai-based Paintcollar, founded in September 2014, is an Applyifi portfolio startup selected in its first batch last month. The startup is an online platform for artists to share their artwork in form of products like t-shirts, mugs, phone cases and earning while offering variety of products.

Paintcollar handles manufacturing, delivery and everything else on artist’s behalf.

Within a span of one year, Paint collar has enrolled over 1000 artists and have created a product creation engine to break away from the confines of galleries and exhibitions and help them upload their art and manage sales.

Paintcollar has also tied up with a large music label to create and market merchandise for their artists.

Amogh Vaishampayan, founder & CEO of Paintcollar said,

Art is often thought of as being restricted to an elite clientele. However, Paintcollar brings art and design to people through affordable products that they use everyday. We have a strong focus on technology and are rapidly scaling up to make our platform available to not just artists, but also musicians, brands and design studios.

Working with indian artists to monetise their work, startups like PosterGully, Cupick and Paintcollar provide a platform for young artist to showcase their work. Also, online design marketplaces cater to an audience of 24 to 35-year-olds, while earning nearly twice the margin of horizontal ecommerce players in the fashion category.

Prajakt Raut who launched Applyifi.com, with an aim to bridge the gap between entrepreneurs and investors said, “Paintcollar is a venture by a competent team that has demonstrated initiative and ability to execute well. The business model is innovative and scalable. The platform is well designed, and they already have over 1,000 artistes registered. They have strong, practical plans to scale up, and have the aspiration to be a large player.”

Applyifi reviews startup profiles and provides investors a detailed assessment report and a 36-point scorecard on the curated high-potential startups. This in turn provides actionable insights to founders to strengthen their business case.

Last month Applyifi curated 18 startups to showcase investors in which Paintcollar scored 104 (out of a maximum 114).

Paintcollar was among the top 10 startups that were part of Inc42’s StartupPulse Mumbai Edition held in February this year.

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