Campus Ink has secured a $2 million round of funding to continue growing its name, image and likeness (NIL) student merchandise platform.

Earlier this year, the Urbana, IL-based apparel decorating company received a minority investment from billionaire Mark Cuban, “Shark Tank” personality and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, to help kickstart its NIL program. The investment was the result of a cold email CEO and co-founder Steven Farag had sent to the mogul.

Steven Farag, CEO and co-founder of Campus Ink

The new round of funding was led by Chicago’s LightBank, a second investment from Cuban and contributions from Capital Innovators, Irish Angels, West Suburban Angels, Connetic Ventures, High Street Equity Partners and The Dike Family Partnership. The money will help Campus Ink scale its NIL platform substantially to universities and student athletes around the country, according to Campus Ink.

“Steven and the team are a group of relentless entrepreneurs whose traction and capital efficiency stood out from day one,” said Jyothi Vallurpalli of LightBank. “As the NIL market has taken off, they are uniquely positioned leaders in the space. Their athlete-first approach, and unwavering passion for empowering athletes no matter how big or small, will change the lives of countless student athletes, and we could not be prouder to be working with them.”

Last season, Campus Ink helped student-athletes on the University of Illinois’ men’s basketball team earn more than $100,000 selling NIL licensed merch. Thanks to Cuban’s early involvement, Campus Ink says that in six months, it has grown its reach to include nearly 25 schools, supporting more than 2,000 athletes.

“Campus Ink is disrupting the NIL space on behalf of college athletes for the better,” Cuban said.

Campus Ink recently launched programs at Indiana, Purdue and San Diego State with more than 200 athletes. Each athlete has their own “locker room” featuring personalized merch connected to their social media accounts. A partnership with Meta allows fans to buy directly from an athlete’s Instagram page.

Campus Ink has also partnered with school bookstores to carry NIL apparel. At Illinois last season, for example, fans purchased nearly 4,000 NIL Illini basketball jerseys online and through their in-venue partner at Gameday Spirit bookstore, according to Campus Ink.

A portion of the new round of funding will go toward growing Campus Ink’s private label jersey program, which makes athletes 20% to 30% per unit sold.

Campus Ink has been a fixture of Urbana since the late 1940s. Farag joined the mom-and-pop shop after college, helping to rebrand and transform the apparel-decoration company. He drew on his own collegiate experience selling apparel to implement Campus Ink’s graphic design and sales training program for college students. Expanding into the NIL world just made logical sense, Farag has said.

“At Campus Ink, we exist to change the lives of students. Some just happen to be athletes,” Farag said. “The company grew by teaching life skills to students, enabling them to design and sell to organizations. When the NIL opportunity presented itself, we were positioned. We set out on a journey last February to roll this out to athletes and schools everywhere and the feedback and receptiveness has been incredible. The NIL community has been truly great to us.”