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Freshmonk is a Threadless-Kickstarter mashup for NGOs, event organizers, interest groups

Wildlife campaign freshmonk
Wildlife campaign freshmonk

The practice of selling T-shirts to raise money has been around for a bit. But India and Singapore-based startup Freshmonk is putting a new twist on the idea through an online platform that’s a cross between Threadless and Kickstarter.

The site aims to make designing, selling, and shipping T-shirts as easy as possible. Users slap on a design onto the shirt using an online tool. They then determine the price of their product and start a crowdfunding campaign. Freshmonk handles everything: fulfillment, payments, and delivery. It pays the bills by collecting a percentage of a shirt’s selling price. That means no upfront costs for sellers, and no need for them to manage inventory.

Granted, Freshmonk isn’t the only one operating in this space. Its website isn’t a looker either. Competition is heating up; crowdfunding has gained traction especially in the US and many startups are putting their own spin on the idea.

Bonfire and Teespring are other companies that handle the entire process of T-shirt production for users – including raising money. However, they’re US-centric sites focusing on the domestic market, and their entire production is centered in the country. That’s plenty of room for a player who can take advantage of low labor costs in Asia, and who possesses links with delivery networks in the region.

“FreshMonk doesn’t currently own any of the facilities producing apparel or doing the printing but takes complete ownership at every step of the process – from controlling T-shirt technical specs in the manufacturing process to end-to-end printing supervision and QA, ” founder and director Prashant Gulati tells Tech in Asia.

“All products […] are produced in one of the low-cost textile hubs of the world – South India. We’ve gone all the way to the beginning of the supply chain, and this helps us manage costs.”

freshmonk founders
freshmonk founders

Photo: Prashant Gulati (right) and Shashank Agrawal

Gulati met co-founder Shashank Agrawal randomly at a startup event in 2013 and the pair worked on a failed startup idea before embarking on Freshmonk. Since starting in early 2014, the platform has enabled purchases by over 5,000 customers from 15 countries. One sample campaign involves Indian animal welfare organization WildlifeSOS, which raised over US$2,200 through a 10-day campaign.

The initial traction is promising enough that Singapore-based venture capital firm August Capital Partners has come on board to lead an early-stage round. Exact details were not disclosed, but Sameer Narula, managing director at the investment firm, says the round is in the high six-digits.

The funding would allow Freshmonk to ramp up its marketing through social media, online advertising, and affiliate partnerships. It will target three groups in South Asia and Asia-Pacific: online communities who want to express their affinity to a cause, fundraisers or non-profits selling shirts and donating the money to charity, and corporations which want to avoid the hassle of apparel production.

Freshmonk is another example of a company that’s taking a familiar model from the US and applying it to Asia. The approach is not guaranteed to work though. For example, attempts to replicate the Kickstarter on Indiegogo model in the rest of Asia (outside China) has not borne much fruit. Freshmonk is hopeful that online T-shirt printing as a market will grow fast enough to make its business sustainable.

See more: New crowdinvesting site wants to bring money to startups in emerging markets

This post Freshmonk is a Threadless-Kickstarter mashup for NGOs, event organizers, interest groups appeared first on Tech in Asia.