Fan merchandise start up Bluegape raises 1.5 crore via online platform
Bluegape, a two-year-old startup that retails fan merchandise for films such as Krrish and Batman as well as for the Aam Aadmi Party has raised funding through an online platform that brings together investors across the globe. The Delhi-based company received over 1.5 crore from global investors through online funding platformLetsVenture.com.
Bluegape was a part of TLabs 1st cohort, a mentorship driven accelerator programme run by Times Internet Ltd (TIL). It received a cheque of Rs 10 lakh Rs as part of the program apart from mentoring and guidance.
Sahil Baghla, the 23-year-old CEO of Bluegape, said the funding was completed in two months with eight different angels from countries such as Ukraine, Singapore, US and India, pitching in. "It would had taken us around five months to get funding through traditional method of meeting different investors which is tough and time consuming ," said Baghla, an alumnus of IIT-Kanpur, who launched the firm with Ayush Varshney, a junior from his institute, after finding it difficult to get posters for his dormitory.
The Delhi-based firm, which sells merchandise like T-shirts, posters, mugs and laptop skins for brands, will use the money to strengthen its supply chain. It will also use it to scale up technology. Out of the eight investors who have funded the firm, Baghla has not met five. These angels showed their interest for investment by looking at a profile and a video pitch on LetsVenture.
"After that we had a phone call of one hour with each of the angels and they decided to invest," said Baghla. As some of the angels are first-time investors, Lets-Venture took care of all kind of financial and legal due diligence and term sheet for the investment round. Founded by a team of serial entrepreneurs and investors last September, the funding platform has grown to 200 global investors and 250 startups.
"Couple of my companies that I was mentoring got closed due to lack of early-stage funding," said Manish Singhal, angel investor and cofounder of LetsVenture.com. "One of my friends met with 61 angel investors before closing a seed round. It was very time consuming." Singhal is of the view that even though there are global online funding platforms, including AngelList, his company is the first such venture dedicated towards the India market.
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