Freshmonk.com, an online custom designing platform which lets you sell self-designed apparels to the masses, has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-series A round of funding. The round was led by Singapore-based August Capital, apart from other investors.
Apart from August Capital, the round also saw investments from Mr. Michael Blakey of Cub Capital and other private individual angel investors. Alex Kumar, Director at ACP, will join the company’s board.
Freshmonk, which is owned by the Singapore/Noida based parent company 91 Design Labs, allows users to design their own apparels on its design platform, and then sell it on Freshmonk’s marketplace.
The company charges no-upfront costs and provides customers with crowd-funding style design, marketing and sales tools. The company takes care of production, distribution and customer service, making the experience hassle-free and passes on the profit to the sellers.
Once you an account, you are presented with FreshMonk’s designer tool to design your T-shirt/apparel. Post designing, you are now asked to fix a sales goal and a selling price for your custom-designed apparel. You then set a selling period for your product, which can lie anywhere between a day or two weeks. Once your design reaches your mentioned sales goal, the T-shirt goes into printing, and you are sent a profit cheque for your product.
Co-founder Prashant Gulati said,
The 0-investment, risk-free nature of a FreshMonk campaign allows sellers to experiment with multiple designs and allow the market to determine which ones are popular and which ones aren’t.
The company is planning to use the fresh for further expansion into Asia. Freshmonk claims to have over 5000 customers from 15 countries, on its initial platform. The company has recently launched a revamped platform.
The custom design+crowd-selling platform is a unique concept in itself. This gives freelance designers, the freedom to design and print their own product at negligible costs. In fact, Freshonk handles your marketing and sales too ! Once you design a product, it gives you your own campaign page wherein you can market your product to the buyers on Freshmonk’s platform.
Groups on social media, forums, digital marketers and not-for-profits have already used the platform successfully. An India based non-profit organization, WidlifeSOS, recently raised over $2,200 in profit using the platform in a 10 day campaign. Civil rights activists across India have also used FreshMonk to spread awareness and raise money.
