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Craftsvilla: A journey from Struggle to Success

by Entrepreneur How · October 26, 2021

Crafsvilla has become a popular name in the world of eCommerce stores. This is the perfect destination for Indian ethnic clothes, fashion accessories, home accessories, and handcrafted lifestyle products. The journey of Craftsvilla started in 2011 and is running successfully today. Its headquarter is in Mumbai, India. The main motto of this eCommerce platform is to directly connect local craftsmen and talented designers to worldwide consumers. There is no middle-man-related pain in the process. Craftsvilla is actually a holy initiative by Monica Gupta and Manoj Gupta.

Foundation year: 2011

Headquarter: Mumbai, India

Founder(s): Monica Gupta and Manoj Gupta

Website: https://www.craftsvilla.com/

How did it all start?

The term ‘Craftsvilla’ is actually a pretty unique name. It is basically the idea of Monica Gupta, the wife of Manoj Gupta. At that time, Manoj was working as a principal of a popular investment firm named Nexus Venture Partners and this company is the primary investor of Craftsvilla. Apart from this, Manoj Gupta is also the CEO of Craftsvilla. On the other hand, Monica Gupta is CA by profession and she has earned her MS degree from San Diego State University in accounting. Presently, she is working as the COO of this new eCommerce Craftsvilla.

Some years back Mrs. Monica Gupta went on an excursion to Kutch in Gujarat. There she has found that lots of extremely creative people are in Kutch and they are crafting jaw-dropping creations but still, they are finding it hard to earn a good livelihood. She realized that these great artists are not getting the actual worth of their excellent creations due to poor connectivity. I mean they cannot connect with the world of consumers and that’s why they do not know the real value of their amazing creations. Apart from this, there were some middleman problems. These middlemen were paying those artists really little and selling their creations at a huge price to somewhere else. Monica wanted to cut this connectivity gap and build a bridge to let craftsmen connect with the best consumers and get the best value for their products.

Mr. and Mrs. Gupta discussed this issue together and planned to have a platform like Craftsvilla but this idea was not that appreciated by their friends and family. Despite all negative comments, both started developing the platform and today we can see the shape and size of their success.

Craftsvilla started with only 80 employees and there were only 5 offices across India. But their luck did not support them. In 2012, they had only 8 people and just one office to run the eCommerce platform. There was no funding support at all. Most founders give up but Manoj Gupta was dedicated to his idea and stuck around it. Their dedication and constant effort have completely changed the scenario within 5 years and now the company has a value of $250 million. Presently Craftsvilla is running with 5 million products in its stock.

Business Model and Revenue Model

This eCommerce platform aims to offer excellent ethnic products to all its customers in a budget-friendly way while cutting the unnecessary charges of middlemen. The company has a lot of artisans and creators, nearly 25 thousand. Craftsvilla gets a 20% commission on each sale made via this platform. It has also tied up with Textile in order to showcase its products.

Craftsvilla funding

We have said that Manoj Gupta was associated with Nexus Venture Partners. Craftsvilla raised Rs. 2.3 crore from this venture in 2011. There was another fund provider, Lightspeed Venture Partners. In 2012, both investors contributed around $1.3 million as the company’s A series of funding.

Concluding to

We can see that the success path was not that easy. It took years of dedicated effort and determination to grow the business. And that is paying today. This can be a real inspiration to those people who are planning to have their own business and grow.