Bucketfeet is a footwear company that collaborates with a global community of artists to design limited-edition shoes with the goal of sparking meaningful conversations to create a brighter world. With a network of 40,000 artists from more than 120 countries, Bucketfeet empowers artists to share their stories and perspectives using the universal language of art and the shoe as their canvas. Artists are paid upfront and earn royalties for their custom designs, which are manufactured and sold exclusively by Bucketfeet. Through a responsive commerce model, the company is disrupting traditional manufacturing cycles and redefining the $300B footwear industry, letting the Bucketfeet community select styles they’d like to purchase and wear to help inform demand. Bucketfeet was founded in 2011 by Raaja Nemani and Aaron Firestein and is headquartered in Chicago. Bucketfeet has retail studio locations in Chicago and Washington, D.C. and has been sold in more than 15 countries. For more information, visit www.bucketfeet.com.
Location: United States, Illinois, Chicago
Employees: 11-50
Total raised: $11.2M
Founded date: 2011
Investors 3
Funding Rounds 2
| Date | Series | Amount | Investors |
| 04.02.2015 | Series A | $7.5M | - |
| 19.06.2014 | - | $3.7M | - |
Mentions in press and media 15
| Date | Title | Description |
| 05.12.2017 | Shop Chicago: The 2017 Chicago Startup Gift Guide | It's not too late to find the perfect gift for that special someone on your shopping list. And Chicago startups are ready to help you find a unique gift for just about anyone. This year we've compiled a list of startups that offer a range o... |
| 15.08.2017 | In a bid for more unique designs, Bucketfeet moves to on-demand shoe manufacturing | Direct-to-consumer shoe brand Bucketfeet wants to allow any artist to create an interesting shoe design. And it’s take one more step in that direction, by moving its production fully on-demand and opening up its site to support hundreds of ... |
| 31.03.2016 | How Catapult Keeps Launching Chicago Businesses | There's no free beer or fancy artwork. No frosted glass cubicles. And the offices are a little cramped. But if the core purpose of a co-working space and innovation hub is to simply serve as a conduit for growth, few facilities in Chicago a... |
| 08.01.2016 | How These Entrepreneurs Found Success in an Industry They Knew Nothing About | January 8, 2016 6 min read It was January 2011 and Raaja Nemani and Aaron Firestein were waiting for 2,600 pairs of sneakers to be delivered to their home in Chicago, which was experiencing a massive snowstorm. When the shipment arrived, vi... |
| 25.12.2015 | How 10 CEOs Keep Company Culture Alive, Even as Their Startups Expand | December 25, 2015 6 min read The companies in this article were included in the Entrepreneur360™ Performance Index. For Olga Vidisheva, founder and CEO of Shoptiques, approving each hire ensures that all staffers represent the ecommerce bus... |
| 02.12.2015 | Announcing This Year's 50 on Fire Winners | Tonight, we unveiled the 50 on Fire, a collection of companies, CEOs, startups, and entrepreneurs that are driving the city's innovation economy forward. From Avant, one of Chicago's four Unicorns, to Todd Connor, Executive Director of the ... |
| 07.10.2015 | How Staying in Front of the Pack Helped the 'Forward Thinkers' Nab a Spot on Entrepreneur360 | October 7, 2015 3 min read Through surveys and available data, we've examined hundreds of small businesses and come away with six archetypal sets of practices and characteristics that we believe are representative of most growth companies o... |
| 06.02.2015 | Funding roundup - week ending 2/06/15 | AnyPerk, Pley, Guardant, HomeLight, SketchDeck, DesignCrowd, Taboola, Qumulo, BucketFeet, Skimlinks Seed stage SketchDeck, a full graphic design on demand service, raised $500,000 from Y Combinator, Dharmesh Shah, Michael Siebel and other a... |
| 04.02.2015 | BucketFeet Raises $7.5M in Series A Funding | BucketFeet, a Chicago, IL-based footwear brand which aims to connect people through art, raised $7.5m in Series A funding round. The round was led by Rishi Shah’s Jumpstart Ventures, a previous investor based in Chicago, with participation ... |
| 04.02.2015 | BucketFeet Raises $7.5 Million To Put Art On Your Shoes | As fashion and technology continue to collide, companies are looking for different ways to build a fashion brand using the resources at their disposal. In the case of BucketFeet, a startup that just raised $7.5 million in Series A, the comp... |
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