 "Icustommadeit gets $4million in pre-series A round of funding")
Icustommadeit announced that it had dissolved equity up to $4 million to add investors to its company. The firm is set to get a capital boost of $1.5 million, while the other $2.5 million has been exchanged for ad inventory.
The investors in the company are The Times of India-publisher Bennett, Coleman & Co's Brand Capital, Siddhivinayak Skyscrapers, Dinesh R Challa and an undisclosed investor.
The $4-million deal, in concept, could be categorised as one of the biggest pre-series A deals over the past few months. The $1.5 million, its founder and CEO Rajiv Iyer said, will be used for expanding the market, which includes going global.
Iyer added that he had negotiated the $2.5 million with Brand Capital in a variable equity deal. “It took me six months to negotiate this deal. This deal means I will give up equity only according to my ad spend. So, say, if I don’t spend any more than $1 million, I still keep the rest of the equity worth $1.5 million. I even have a deal on a buy back at a pre-determined price,” said Iyer.
He refused a deal with Springboard, the Times Group’s venture fund, as it meant that he would have to give up 51% of his company for very little capital infusion. He said that he had seen what had happened to the likes of Localbanya and knew the risks that came along with such a deal. But he remains confident that he could get the best out of this deal.
The company, which was formed in 2013, is an e-commerce platform, which offers customers a customized version of the product they desire. The company connects designers and artisans to customers on the platform and charges a fee for enabling the transaction as well as shipment if needed.
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“The most common product customised on our platform is bikes. A customer can take a picture of the bike and asks for certain types of customization to it. Creators, as we like to call them, will volunteer to do that and send in a quote,” Iyer said.
The customer decides who to give his bike to and the portal adds its own cost to it, which includes shipping. The average transaction size for bikes is close to Rs 1.5 lakh. “But without bikes are average ticket size is around $70,” he said. The company typically takes seven days from the time of ordering to the point of delivery.
“Apart from bikes, where it can take up to one month,” Iyer said. The platform currently lists 30,000 products from 3,000 sellers and customises everything from cars to jewellery to even wheelchairs. The company he said is in discussion with venture capitalists for raising another round of funding soon.