Couple had asked for $20,000.
By Raif Karerat
Washington: An Indian American couple has blown Chicago’s current Kickstarter record out of the water, with his Baubax travel jacket having raised more than $3.9 million on the crowdfunding platform with about a month of funding still to go.
The BauBax jacket is a multi-purpose jacket intended to keep travelers organized with 15 features that include a built-in neck pillow, koozie drink pocket, sunglass storage pocket, iPad pocket, among others.
Co-founders and spouses Hiral Sanghavi, the Chicago-based CEO, and Yoganshi Shah, the San Francisco-based chief design officer, had originally asked for $20,000 to begin production of the jackets, which was inspired by Sanghavi’s travel habits, according to Entrepreneur magazine. Sanghavi moved to Chicago in 2014 to start school while his designer wife remained in San Francisco:
Sanghavi, who grew up in India and owns a company there, was constantly forgetting his neck pillow when he went to the airport. He traveled often, both for work and to visit his now wife, Yoganshi Shah, in the U.S. Shah finally got fed up watching her husband spend $25 on a pillow every time he traveled, and didn’t love the stockpile of pillows they were gradually amassing either.
And thus the idea for the BauBax jacket was born.
According to Kickstarter, the end-all travel jacket will come in a variety of basic colors and in four styles — wrinkle-free blazer for the business traveler, fleece-lined bomber, water-repellent windbreaker, and a cotton sweatshirt. The pre-order prices ranges from $89 to $120.
Baubax also recently received backing from a venture capital firm and individual investors, Sanghavi informed the Chicago Tribune, though he declined to provide details. The funding has allowed the company to get a 45-day head start on designing the molds and will also help the company expand into new product lines.
He said Baubax has secured deals with four manufacturers in Asia, one for each of the jacket styles, and that he expects the head start will keep them on track for a promised November 2015 ship date.
2 Comments
Had to pay an extra 79 euros to custom to get my bomber!
Try to contact BAUBAX but no reply after ONE WEEK…
Support staff currently experiencing high email volume ??? WHY I wonder?
Don’t you thing that with $11,360,667 USD you could get more staff to reply?
More to follow here on the : WORST travel jacket I got ever.
great campaign; as for the product that is to be seen