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Cupick, India's Etsy, Just Raised Rs 75 Lakhs On Termsheet.io

This Online Marketplace For Indian Artists Just Got Funded
Cupick

Bangalore based start-up Garage Labs Technologies the firm behind Cupick.com, just closed its first round from a group of US and Indian angel investors via TermSheet.io, a deal discovery platform.

Several angel investors from the US and India participated in this round. These include JKN Partners (an angel syndicate), JK Patel, Sushil Agarwal from India and Kalpesh Shethia, Rajeev Mudumba, Dinesh Tadepalli and Sudheshna Vuppala from the US.

Cupick is a social network for artists that allows them to sell their work, closed a seed round of approximately Rs 75 lakhs with the TermSheet platform. Launched in October 2014, Cupick has the works of over 2500 artists onboard on its site, with over 7500 artworks on sale.

“Termsheet made the whole process very frictionless, and takes care of the documentation and regulatory needs. We basically went from closing the deal to making the announcement in 15 days flat, which for India is a record time.” said Shaishav Todi, Founder and CEO of Cupick, adding that the firm is very competitive in terms of pricing when compared to hiring a legal team.

When asked if the site was like India’s Etsy, Todi said that order fulfilment and customer relationship aspects are managed by the seller on Etsy, while Cupick is centred around visual artists, who can sell digital content online. “It’s also a place for artists to showcase their work. Cupick helps them monetize this asset class through merchandising.” said Todi.

Cupick has an eclectic roster of International and Indian artists like Orijit Sen, Dangercat, Gaurav Basu, Shilo Shiv Suleman and Malvika Asher.

Vivek Durai, founder of Termsheet.io said that his product was centred around the fact that legal and contracts are hugely broken in the conduct of business. “They are actually bottlenecks. Lawyers are incentivised to take more time, so the longer you take, the more money you make, since they charge by the hour.” he said.

Termsheet has previously raised funds for Aisle.co, a matchmaking website, and Ather, which was backed by Flipkart founders.

"Angel investment is a completely different ballgame from growth-stage investments. The things you are looking out for, the way you want to close a deal is different. It's mostly on trust." Durai said.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.