InkMonk, a Chennai-based online printing marketplace, has raised around Rs 4.8 crore ($750,000) in its seed funding round, led by Dubai-based VAMM Ventures.
Besides VAMM Ventures, Raksul – a printing marketplace and Dena – an Internet firm, have also participated in this funding round. Both companies are based out of Japan.
The startup’s total funding raised so far, including the current round, now stands at about Rs 64 crore ($1 million). Its list of investors include the likes of Girish Mathrubootham, founder, and CEO of Freshdesk; Phanindra Sama, ex-CEO of Redbus, among others.
The company was founded by Isaac John Weasley and Surya Sankar. It has around 30 product categories spanning across 5,000+ product customisations.
The platform helps customers to design online and discover print shops across India with instant pricing and delivery options for the customer to choose from.
It claims to have 200 print shops on-board, and is hoping to build online reputation for each shop to compete against each other on a fair basis with genuine ratings and reviews by customers.
Going forward, with the help of this new funding round, the company is aiming to reach 100 categories in the next four months and further increase their marketing activities.
The company is majority focusing on small companies, law firms, restaurants, etc. with a significant 60% B2B and 40% B2C user base. InkMonk’s founders says that 80% of the GMV comes from the B2B while the rest 20% comes from the B2C.
In India, InkMonk competes against the likes of Vista Print and Print Venue, among others. However, unlike its competitors, the company doesn’t own any asset.