Darby Smart Raises $6.3M For DIY Craft Marketplace

Darby Smart, a do-it-yourself crafting startup, has raised $6.3 million in Series A funding led by Maveron, with participation from Forerunner Ventures, CAA Ventures and existing investors.

The startup, which is co-founded by Nicole Shariat Farb, former Head of Emerging Private Companies in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and Karl Mendes, a Senior Software Engineer from Eventbrite; launched last year.

The company works with with top Pinterest designers of DIY accessories, fashion and home items to kit, market and sell their projects to consumers, complete with all materials and instructions needed to complete the project.

Darby Smart offers pre-packaged Kits that have been compiled by popular designers on Pinterest. The DarbySmart team works closely with the project designers to test and identify the best possible materials for DIYers to create lasting products. Then, Darby Smart handles sourcing and purchasing the materials, to packaging the Kits and more. These Kits, which range from $15 to $45 each, include all the materials and instructions necessary to successfully complete the project at hand. Designers in turn receive a share of revenue from the kits sold.

The new funding will be put towards figuring out interesting ways to help designers, and increase engagement among participants.

Crafting is a actually a huge business across the U.S. (a $29 billion industry, to be exact), and Darby Smart says its been seeing growth because of the pickup of the crafting industry online. The company says quarterly revenue has increases at an average of 440% over the past 3 quarters (Of course, it’s important to note that the startup started with no revenue). To date, Darby Smart’s designer community has grown from 10 to thousands of designers in the online crafting community.