`It’s a very special feeling to have created a brand like Inkfruit`

A former student of IIT Bombay and IIM Lucknow, Kashyap Dalal, the co-founder of Inkfruit.com, talks about his future plans…

He currently resides at Bangalore with his wife Meera and daughter Anika. He has spent his childhood in Bombay. He has also worked at Unilever (HUL) for a few years before starting Inkfruit. How did you get the idea to start Inkfruit? I started Inkfruit in 2008 with my friend and partner, Navneet. We came up with the idea of inkfruit in one of many discussions over cutting-chai. The core idea was that we were excited about the lifestyle apparel space in India and felt that a range of interesting differentiated apparel would do well. To ensure that the apparel would be interesting and in sync with the latest trends, we built Inkfruit as a democratic brand, where artists from across the world participated online at www.inkfruit.com by submitting their designs for our products. The most popular designs would be selected and printed. How was the transformation from working with a reputed company to setting up your start-up? Quite interesting. I think working on your own start-up is a journey of discovering yourself in many ways. Everything is in your control and you immediately see the results of every good decision as well as of a bad one. It’s a liberating experience in a way - you have no one to bank on or crib about. Were there any difficulties you faced while setting up the company? How did you manage to get the required funds? We went through multiple cycles of fund raising. The first 2 years were bootstrapped and we made do with small amounts of angel investment from alumni. In 2010 we raised the first round of institutional capital from SAIF Partners followed by 2 more rounds. How has the journey been as an entrepreneur? Very rewarding. It’s a very special feeling to have created a brand like Inkfruit, followed and loved by millions of people across the country. What are your future plans? In early 2013, we merged Inkfruit with Zovi.com. I am now working at Zovi to scale the combined business. I look forward to the combined company scaling to new heights. I am definitely looking at working on more exciting opportunities as an entrepreneur. Indiancolleges.com / Pooja Mathur