Cupick, an online marketplace for artists which allows them to merchandize and hence monetize their artwork (this one is a personal favourite), has raised $120K in seed funding through TermSheet.io, a platform which connects start-ups with angel investors.
Investors from India and US have participated in this funding round. These include JKN Partners, JK Patel, Sushil Agarwal from India and Kalpesh Shethia, Rajeev Mudumba, Dinesh Tadepalli and Sudheshna Vuppala from US.
Founded in September 2014 by Justin Alva, Rituraj Dowerah and Shaishav Todi, cuPICK allows visual artists like illustrators, graphic designers, digital artists, painters, photographers, etc. to showcase, share and sell their work in form of t-shirts, hoodies, posters, art prints, canvases and cards.
With this fresh capital infusion, Cupick is now planning to expand its product lines and also invest money in product development. It is also looking forward to hire new people across different verticals.
It claims to have over 2,500 artists on its portal who have uploaded more than 9,000 artworks. Artists can upload their artwork in high resolution, choose products to sell on and have freedom to set their own prices. The company handles printing, shipping, payments and customer services.
Cupick also has an analytics tool at artists’ disposal, to allow them to track and grow their audience. Artists are provided with metadata, watermark and download protection tools so as to protect their work. The copyright to the artwork is always retained with the artist.
Shaishav Todi, co-founder and CEO of Cupick, says,
There are hundreds of thousands of artists creating beautiful artwork but with no way to monetize or reach out to a larger audience. Then there are large copyright holders sitting on huge repositories of idle creative assets. Cupick helps them monetize this asset class through merchandising.
TermSheet.io, through whose platform Cupick raised money, is driven by its accelerated closing methodology and a founder-friendly vision. With this funding round, TermSheet marks its fourth deal since the launch of their closed beta in December 2014.
