HomeLane, an interior design service, makes a splash with $4.5M funding

HomeLane, a startup interior design service aimed at India’s growing number of middle class consumers, launched in the middle of last year. Today the startup team announced that it has already secured US$4.5 million in series A funding from no less a backer than Sequoia Capital. A relatively new Indian VC named Aarin Capital also contributed some of the investment.

Although HomeLane features an online 3D planning tool to help visualize what your decorated home might look like, much of the startup’s service happens offline. The young company does all the design layout for consumers, works with furniture builders on the stuff that it sells, and then installs the products in the buyer’s home. These come delivered within four weeks and have a three-year warranty. Prabhu Venkatesh, HomeLane’s COO, says the idea is based around “no unpleasant surprises” for consumers in what’s normally a fragmented and confusing marketplace where so many people get ripped off.

At the moment it covers kitchens, wardrobes, entertainment units, and study tables. All the things are modular so that they can be scaled up or down depending on the size of the home.

With major companies like Ikea and B&Q – which do kitchen installations and even full-on home decoration in some markets – not present in India, HomeLane senses an opportunity to make an impact in what the team says is a $10 billion-per-year home set-up market in India’s top cities.

The startup currently covers four cities in India. The team says in today’s announcement that part of the funding will go towards expanding to cover a full 10 cities.

See: Stayzilla, India’s Airbnb, raises $20M to reach 8,000 towns by year-end