 "ShoeKonnect looks at angel funding for expansion")
It is the first business venture coming out from BizCrum, a company launched by three economic graduates from Delhi University, who were working in multinational companies. The founders, Siddharth Vij, Chaitanya Rathi and Siddharth Rastogi has a family background of food wear and apparel manufacturing, and has entered into the business considering they know how these businesses work, said Siddharth Vij, CEO of the company.
The company started a mobile platform, tailor made for the footwear and leather industry. ShoeKonnect acts as a free trade lead platform, where it connects the businesses to sign up and communicate through chat and call through the app, through which they can finalise purchase or sales of shoe products in bulk and components.
"Retailers from across the country can buy directly from manufacturers through ShoeKonnect and we manage the quality, delivery and payments," he added. As a business model, the company charge a commission from the manufacturer for the orders placed through its platform, but for the retailers or the buyers, it is a free service.
"We have been bootstrapped so far and is currently looking at raising around Rs 1.5 crore, from the angel investors, to take the business forward," said Vij. He added that the money would be used for improving the technology of its discovery engine used for offering the free trade lead services, which could be utilised by any of the stakeholders in the industry. It would look at sponsored listing as a revenue model in this.
At present, it connects around 3,000 footwear businesses including manufacturers, suppliers, traders and retailers from India and neighbouring countries. The business transactions started almost two months back and it has a gross merchantise value of Rs 5 lakh so far. It has posted a revenue of Rs 40,000 to 50,000 per month at present, with around 15-20 retailers conducted a total of 35 transactions. The company expects 1,000-1,200 retailers to transact through its platform in next one year. While at present the payment is directly collected by the company, it would be releasing a new update of the app next month with facilities to pay online using payment gateways, said Vij.
The company claims that it is supported by various organisations including Council for Leather Exports, Indian Footwear Components Manufacturers Association and Agra Footwear Manufacturers and Exporters Chamber.