ArtZolo.com is an online marketplace for artist and art lovers to appreciate and own artworks. The startup aims to be the discovery platform for artworks that mostly would go unidentified. The platform was launched in Jan 2014 by Vishal Singhal and Preeti Singhal with only two categories. Now it has expanded into many categories mainly paintings, drawings, photograph, digital art, crafts/handicrafts. The firm is headquartered in Cochin with operations based out of Mumbai.
When asked about the idea generation, Vishal Singhal, Founder, ArtZolo.com told BWDisrupt, “Coming from an entrepreneurial family eased in the decision of plunging into entrepreneurship. There were enough case studies of family members who tried to showcase their art but found it difficult due to lack of a good platform. As founders we were always inclined to solve a problem which has a business and social impact. After speaking to over 300 artists and conducting multiple surveys, quite a few of our hypothesis was confirmed.”
The startup is bootstrapped so far. The founders have invested in their personal capacity and used the money to build technology platform and marketing/sales. Since the start, ArtZolo has grown its business organically.
While speaking about revenue details and the team, Vishal added, “Revenue for 2014-2015 was nearly Rs. 27 lakhs and in 2015-2016, it was Rs. 60 lakhs. We grew from 2 people team to 8 people. We have been profitable for the past year of operation.”
ArtZolo competes with the likes of Mojarto, the startup said. There are few other players too who offer small portions of what ArtZolo offers. Commenting on the ArtZolo’s USP, Vishal stated, “Our USP is the artworks that we have in our portfolio, unique features on our platform such as wall view, art bids on artworks that we offer, certificate of authenticity that we offer with original artworks. More importantly, there are a lot of awesome artists who had never exhibited online before and now have their artworks with us on ArtZolo.com. We get quite a few inquiries from various locations across the country.”
ArtZolo has won several awards. Some of them are AABI Torch Award for Internationalization in 2015., It was also awarded as a HOT 100 Tech Startup in India (the review committee consisted of CIO Network, KPMG, Microsoft Ventures, Nasscom 10,000 startups).
At last, Vishal shares some interesting incidents encountered during his entrepreneurial journey, he mentioned, “It has been a full-filled journey till date. Beware of self-proclaimed experts, do your research before you end up buying. There are art lovers who do not have any ownership documents, which may not be great especially when you are looking the artworks as an investments. During our course, we did not realize the kind of impact we have had. There have been artists from various parts of the country whom we have not met physically and still have mentioned words of praises on how we have helped them changed their mindset positively.”
