CustomMade names Google Ventures and First Round Capital as Lead Investors

In September, CustomMade co-founders Mike Salguero and Seth Rosen reported in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the company had raised $2 million of an expected $2.1 million in its first institutional funding round.  Only the co-founders were listed as investors at that time.

On November 17, 2011, CustomMade revealed all its financial backers.  The lead investors are Google Ventures and First Round Capital.

Other investors include:

• Founder Collective
• Launch Capital
• NextView Ventures
• Andrew McCollum, former co-founder of Facebook
• David Tisch of TechStars

So what do these investors see in CustomMade?  Where is CustomMade going?

According to an article on TechCrunch by Alexia Tsotsis, the goal is no less than “disrupting big box retail with its suite of personalized products.”  Mike Salguero and Google Ventures partner Rich Miner explain:

“A lot of people think that custom is expensive and out of reach, and that’s really not true any more,” says co-founder Mike Salguero, “There’s a lot of trade winds right now about buying local and buying green and supporting your local economy.”

“We see a large opportunity in technology platforms that can seamlessly connect consumers with the goods they want specifically designed for them,” said Google Ventures partner Rich Miner in a release,  “By combining local artisans – from the custom furniture maker in New Mexico to the jewelry designer in Austin – to millions of shoppers around the country, CustomMade serves the need of a growing marketplace.”

The funding will be used to expand CustomMade’s staff, operations, and website features, such as its newest innovation, the “Get It Made” job board service, which makes it possible for “a shopper to post a custom project, receive proposals for their work from talented craftspeople across the country, and pay through CustomMade’s trusted and secure marketplace.”  In the last month alone, CustomMade has received more than $2 million in project requests posted to the site at an average price of $1,500 per job.  As Mike explains to Gregory Gomer in an article for BostInnovation:

“CustomMade has taken the complexity out of the handcrafted luxury custom goods marketplace. What was once thought of as a cost and time prohibitive process can now be as turnkey as purchasing from a catalog retailer. … We believe that more and more consumers will choose to buy custom-made products from small businesses if we can make the process easy and enjoyable.”

Congratulations to Mike, Seth, and everyone at CustomMade!