Chennai, NFAPost: Pop-culture merchandise startup Cover It Up has acquired seed round of funding of Rs 3.5 crore. The funding round comes in pursuit of scaling of business from all angles.
Founded in 2014, Cover It Up has now acquired its first round of funding by Angel Investors namely, Sanjay Wadhwa, Manish Mardia, Madan Lal Gundecha, Vimal Jain and Nishank Sakaria. Ronak Sarda founded Cover It Up with an
intention to tap the bubbling market of smartphone cases with its approach of customisation to make the products stand out.
With just Rs 21,000, Ronak Sarda started the business as merely a Facebook page to sell printed phone cases with the idea of customisation. The focus on customisation has helped the brand to carve its niche and establish monopoly in the area of customisation.
“The company plans to use this round of funding to strengthen operations by bringing in new and creative talents simultaneously concentrating on R&D, development of IT infrastructure, which will lead to an enhanced product portfolio. Some parts of the funds will also be earmarked towards research and development to enhance the existing product range and also create new ones,” said Founder Ronak Sarda.
“We shipped about 120,000 products for the year 2019-2020, while this year we are on the path of a sale projectory of 150,000 units,” said Sarda.
Over the years, Cover It Up has partnered with some leading global brands like Marvel, DC, Warner Bros, FRIENDS, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Disney and Looney Tunes to sell their merchandise. Cover It Up is also the official merchandise partner for Chennai Super Kings, Kaala, Darbar, Robot 2.0 and now has recently tied up with NASA, thus giving patrons a diverse range of products to own and relate with.
In order to establish a global footprint, the team also wants to create engaging content on the website by adding features such as Augmented Reality (AR) to enhance the customer Experience.
“Customer experience and the relatability to the merchandise play a pivotal role in this niche area that we operate in. Therefore, our business model relies heavily upon constant upgradation of engineering plus design skills. With this amalgamation, the company aims to touch revenue of Rs 25 crore by next financial year,” said Sarda.
Cover It Up has grown from being a single product offering to a brand with multiple options of customisations. From phone covers to unisex T-shirts, hoodies, journals, notebooks, the brand has simply grown by understanding and tapping into the wants from the market.
Likewise, the pandemic has also encouraged the team to cater to the need-of-the-hour products. Cover It Up’s range of products now includes work-from-home products. Cover It up also aspires to meet the increasing demands of customers for variety of merchandise after the rise in the popularity of OTT platforms during the lockdown.
With the abundance of content available on the OTT platforms, it is only natural for people to relate with their favourite shows, characters and the meme-culture has definitely dug up a promising road for us. “The round of funding has definitely given the boost for lateral and vertical expansion, once the immediate milestones are crossed, we will be looking at further rounds of funding to scale up the business,” added the founder.
