BedBathMore.com has acqui-hired graphic art marketplace Crude Area to strengthen it’s other strategic acquisitions in the home decor and lifestyle space.
The company’s private label offerings in linen, furniture and other categories will receive a boost in the hyper-competitive Indian e-commerce space. The home furnishing e-commerce sector is valued at a whopping 60,000 crore, and is witnessing triple digit growth rates of 215%.
The move is in line with BedBathMore’s ambitious USP of offering their users a revolutionary way of designing their homes by focusing on art content and e-commerce. It had recently acqui-hired Homado.com, a marketplace for interior designers.
Crude Area, founded in 2012, aims to utilize a network of Indian and international artists to provide graphic art for home and lifestyle purposes including mugs, wall posters, framed and canvas prints and the like. It has been incubated by Sidharth Rao, Founder of Webchutney and has also raised money from angel investors including Sachin Bhatia, co-founder Make My Trip and CEO, TrulyMady.
Speaking on the expansion, Amit Dalmia, Founder & Managing Director, BedBathMore.com said,
Crude Area has built a robust model of identifying art based products and we are sure they will add value to our overall effort of offering unique and differentiated products. As a business, wall art and private label extension in decor and furniture was always a vision for BedBathMore.com and the move ties in with our expansion plan and our acqui-hire strategy. We will continue with similar acqui-hires in the near future.
The all-stock deal will witness the transition of the Crude Area team into BedBathMore’s management. Shweta Bandari, now VP Platform and community and Falguni Agarwal, now creative director at BedBathMore will also be a part of the development and creative teams.
Sidharth Rao, Founder, Webchutney said,
Amit and I have interacted on different occasions earlier and a lot of synergies emerged from those conversations. Coincidentally I also wanted to move beyond just Wall Art and other categories of home decor as a private label, which tied in with BedBathMore.com’s strategy. Amit and his team have a great experience in the business that could help the team circumvent the learning curve around these new plans. BedBathMore.com is moving towards a more holistic and horizontal space to become a one-stop-destination for everything home. From ideas, to products and services, the search for anything home ends at Bed Bath More. Crude Area was a natural fit in Bed Bath More’s offering.
The home furnishing e-commerce sector is valued at a whopping 60,000 crore, and is witnessing triple digit growth rates of 215%.
