Online gadget accessory marketplace, DailyObjects has raised Rs 9 crore led by Ronnie Screwvala’s venture capital firm Unilazer Ventures, Lenskart founder Peyush Bansal and redBus founder Phanindra Sama.
The online-only brand will use the funds to foray into brick and mortar retail, both independently and through tie-ups with premium retailers.
DailyObjects previously raised an undisclosed amount from early stage investment firm Seedfund in 2012.The Delhi-based startup was founded in 2011 by Pankaj Garg and Saurav Adlakha.
Peopic Retail Pvt. Ltd, which runs DailyObjects, sells premium cases for smartphones and the MacBook with an average ticket size of Rs.1,500. It now sells only polycarbonate cases and plans to launch leather smartphone and sunglass cases shortly.
“These stores will help us gain more visibility and establish our brand name. Currently when customers see the product online, they think that these are expensive products. We want them to have a touch and feel of the build and the product quality. Only then will they be able to differentiate our products with what are sold in the local markets,” said Pankaj Garg, co-founder and chief executive officer.
He added that the funding will help the company launch many new lines of personal products.
The company plans to enter into the offline space and open and launch around 100 outlets by end of February. Three exclusive outlets will be set at the airports of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
“Besides, it will also enable us to build out our team and infrastructure to cement our current position as the leader in the market for smartphone cases, predicted to be worth Rs 1,500 crore by 2020,” he said.
In the past few months, DailyObjects has bagged rights for using Batman-Arkham and football icon Lionel Messi designs.
With over 5,000 works from 62 artists, DailyObjects has a monthly sale of 15,000 cases.
DailyObjects works with 60 Indian and foreign artists who design the products and receive a commission for every sale of a product based on their designs. The company currently claims to have 5,500 designs with over 200,000 stock keeping units.
It also sells customized cases for which a user needs to upload an image on the site. Garg said the company gets almost 30% of its business from this segment.
In order to expand its reach, it has also tied up with restaurant discovery platform Zomato to launch Zomato- branded cases.
“We design cases with pictures of things like food items and with the brand name of Zomato. Zomato has a much wider reach; it promotes our cases on its site. We in turn end up getting larger traffic,” said Garg, adding that the company has also been getting orders from overseas after forging the Zomato partnership.
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