T-shirt design crowd-sourcing platform VoxPopClothing gets $1M from Blume, others

Mumbai-based 21 Trends Pvt Ltd, the company behind VoxPopClothing, a community-driven platform to crowd-source t-shirt designs by individuals across the country, has secured $1 million in bridge funding from existing investor Blume Ventures, with participations from a few other unnamed investors.

The funds would be utilised to increase product category in higher margin products, ramp up team and widen brand partnerships.

"We recently launched a crowd-funding platform for designers and independent brands to develop and sell customised apparel to their fans. This has seen participation both on the supply and demand side. So, a part of the money would go to building the network effects that are inherent in this model," said Siddharth Taparia, CEO of VoxPop.

The company was founded by Taparia, an alumnus of Harvard Business School. He had earlier founded another firm called Soundwave Creations. In the past, he had worked at companies including The Walt Disney Company, McKinsey & Co., and Deutsche Bank in various roles.

VoxPopClothing is a community that supports brands that are iconic in nature. The collections available on the platform are inspired by popular television shows such as Dexter and The Game of Thrones, among others. It also designs and sells character t-shirts for brands like Disney, Marvel, DC Comics and Star Trek. The firm has partnered with over 10 brands so far.

The firm had previously secured $400,000 in funding from Blume Ventures and a few unnamed investors from India and the US in November last year.

"VoxPop has shown that there is a tremendous market amongst the younger consumer target group and we believe that the business is already on a path to being a multi-hundred crore brand," said Karthik Reddy, managing partner of Blume Ventures.