Screen Skinz earns $1.5 million seed round to disrupt the phone security industry

Clay Canning, brainstorming at his creative peak in high school, decided to simulate smartphone screen protectors decorated with actual logos on the screens. The sports and licensing realm was pioneered by Rashaun Brown, who teamed up, and hence Screen Skinz came into being.

“We both appreciated each other's potential and have supplemented our capabilities,” said Rashaun Brown, now acting as CEO. "In December 2022, after spending eight years in my job I left to focus fully on Screen Skinz with Clay."

“Today, we are excited to announce the completion of a $1.5 million Seed round that was led by South Loop Ventures and ABO Ventures.”

The company specializes in personalized phone screen protectors, which are patent pending and can be customized with customer-specific logos or slogans. The pattern is visible when the screen is off and fits perfectly with the active screen. Customers can design on their own or select some of the already printed designs that are available on the company website.

The market value of phone accessories, especially screen protectors, will reach a staggering $51 billion globally by 2023 according to recent reports.

The partnerships with elite brands have already started with creative licenses to recognized brands such as NFL, NBA, Marvel, and WWE. The investment round gave the company a big push as it shifted operations of manufacturing from Asia to the U.S. bringing supply chain improvement into play.

Initially, the startup concentrated on smartphones but has its dream to introduce screen protectors for tablets also. Brown is focused on the opportunistic disposition of their IP by delivery to any device with a backlit feature.

However, Brown specified the fundraising path as "unique". It took about one year to close the seed round. The phase was deliberately stretched out for fine-tuning their supply chain and stocking of inventory for market readiness. "We meant to be explicitly clear in our presentation to investors," Brown insists.

Brown was hooked on Abo Venture, an investor he got to know through his connection during his time in Texas A&M, which led Abo Ventures to serve as a co-lead investor for Screen Skinz. The mixture of South Loop Ventures occurred as the team participated in the DivInc Sports Tech Accelerator in Houston.

The veteran SVP in consumer products at NFL and Hasbro, Michelle Micone, was so impressed with the idea Screen Skinz had developed and how they managed complicated production and distribution processes.