Minted, the online design marketplace that connects consumers with the world’s best stationery and artwork creators, is branching out in textiles.
The e-commerce design startup has raised around US$ 38 million in a round led by Norwest Venture Partners and the Technology Crossover Ventures to offer custom designed fabrics curated from over 1,400 submissions by independent designers around the world including Cape Town, South Africa and Milford, Michigan.
As with its previous businesses, the website’s active community of artists will analyse and improve the submitted textile designs which will be later selected through crowdsourcing and analytics.
The curated selection will finally be sold with Minted managing all aspects of the business operations, from manufacturing and on-demand fulfillment to shipping and customer service.
Mariam Naficy, the founder and CEO of the company said in a statement, “We are building on our heritage of gathering the finest artists in the world and identifying the best products to help them monetize their work. We are enabling an untapped population of creative geniuses, while at the same time satisfying a massive consumer demand for unique products.”
Jeff Crowe, the Managing Partner of Norwest Venture Partners, stated, “Minted is completely disrupting the traditional marketplace model by using the power of crowdsourcing to curate every product sold, and giving consumers what they want most: hyper-custom, high quality goods. Minted is activating a distributed global work force. This business without borders is very clearly the marketplace model that will win.”
In addition to facilitating the artists’ direct connection with consumers, the firm is also set to activate a new storefront model which would give thousands of artists and designers the opportunity to run their own businesses. Through its manufacturing and customer service platforms, the artists and designers who have won Minted design competitions and gained a reputation for high quality design, will be invited to open stores and launch new art or textile designs.
Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Minted has till date supplied art, stationery and textiles products to over 40 million homes worldwide. The company hosts design and artwork competitions on a monthly basis. (PB)
