Ex-Googler’s startup raises $15m to let Indians design homes and buy furniture

Photo credit: Livspace.

Livspace, a site where people can design interiors and buy furniture, today announced a series B round of US$15 million led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Singapore-based Jungle Ventures and Helion Ventures also participated in the round.

The startup’s previous funding round was a US$12.6 million series A led by Bessemer and Helion.

“It’s a typical growth round,” says co-founder Anuj Srivastava, who founded the company with Ramakant Sharma. “Raising this type of money is necessary to figure out a model and scale.”

“We’ve spent very little money on marketing till date”

The money will be used in a few ways. The company plans on scaling existing operations and adding new product categories. It also aims to establish “experience centers” – places where customers can touch and feel materials and visualize how furniture might look in their homes. Anuj mentions they’ll likely incorporate features like touch screens and augmented reality for the added oomph factor.

The money will also be used to launch in new cities, including Mumbai and Gurgaon by the end of 2016, and Pune by the start of 2017. Livspace is currently operational in three large metro cities, including Bangalore.

“We’ve spent very little money on marketing till date,” says Anuj. “Less than 2 percent of our overall revenue has gone there, and we want to make sure that our marketing dollars are really well done. We’ll also start using the money for things like local branding – but there’s no Shah Rukh Khan ad coming out from us any time soon. The nature of our business is that people will talk about us because we do a good job.”

Not an Ikea, or an UrbanLadder… or anything else

Livspace connects with furniture suppliers across India, the smallest of whom are worth about US$1.5 million, and the largest about US$30 million. “We’re not working with small businesses,” Anuj says.

In July, the startup launched an automation platform that would let it act as an “Uber for designers,” meaning that interior designers from all over the world can contribute to Livspace.

It claims to fulfill its end-to-end services – from designing an interior, ordering furniture and other items, to setting it all up in a home – in just twelve weeks.

Anuj says there’s really no comparison between the Netherlands-based Ikea stores and what Livspace does. Ikea provides shoppers with in-store experiences of how purchased furniture might look inside a home. The company announced plans to construct and complete its first store in Hyderabad, India by the end of 2017.

“We’re an automation platform,” Anuj affirms. “Add another layer to what Ikea has. Customers can get everything from interior design to experience translated online. They can order and visualize things. We’re a catalog to an interface all in one platform.”

“There’s really no one else doing what we’re doing in India,” he adds.

From Google to furniture ecommerce