Online home decor platform, LivSpace has today announced that it has minted a fresh $15 million(about Rs. 100 crore) in its third round of funding. The investment was led by existing backers, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Hellion Venture Partners and Singapore-based Jungle Ventures.
The newly infused capital will be used to expand the team and operations to launch its services in more cities. It will start by stepping foot into Mumbai, Noida and Gurgaon by end of this year, followed by Pune and Hyderabad in first half of 2017. LivSpace will also spend a chunk to build offline experience centers using technology tools based on Augmented and Virtual Reality.
Indian home decor and design online marketplace business is one of the more emerging segments in today’s scenario. And LivSpace being one of them, is using design, data science technology, and catalogs to provide you a personalized shopping experience. To speed up the design and delivery process, it has recently launched a home automation tool that connects the users with designers in real time.
The company will expand its design automation platform by adding thousands of freelance designers in the country. It also plans to strengthen the catalog, and launch new modular products for users to choose from.
Now, the use of AR and VR also means that another startup is accepting the global trend and riding the wave to provide its customers with first-hand (virtual) look at their home designs. The home decor startup is also in the furniture, modular kitchen and wardrobe business.
Commenting on the funding round, Anuj Srivastava, co-founder and CEO, LivSpace, says,
We’re already seeing thousands of designers and partners who have expressed interested in getting certified on our platform which will help create the most capital efficient, technology driven, and asset light model for the end-to-end home design industry.
We’ve built an enviable company which is truly a pioneer in its space worldwide. By combining the principles of platform, technology and design, we have built Livspace into a technology-driven, consumer internet company that continues to make explosive growth across all business metrics.
Prior to this round, LivSpace has managed to raise over $12.6 million in two rounds(or tranches of $4.6Mn and $8Mn) of funding led by the aforementioned investors. It has recently also acquired two home decor startups in quick succession. One being, YaFloor — a mobile platform that offers a virtual trial room for home design decisions, while the other being DezignUp — an online community and marketplace for both designers and consumers.
LivSpace expects to clock revenue of $100 million by the end of this fiscal year. The company also claims that it is currently profitable in Bengaluru and expects to become operationally profitable across all cities in the near future. Over the next year, the company also aims to dramatically scale customer experience such that anyone can have a beautiful home in less than 12 weeks and modular installations in 8 weeks.
Commenting on its investment in LivSpace, Vishal Gupta, MD at Bessemer Venture Partners India, said,
We are very impressed with the pioneering approach, traction, and commercial scale achieved by Livspace, in a short period of time. Livspace is already India’s largest online home design company and continues to see tremendous demand side scale due to the recently announced home design automation platform.
Bangalore-based LivSpace, owned by Home Interior Designs E-commerce Pvt. Ltd was founded by Anuj Srivastava, Ramakant Sharma who were senior executives at Google and Myntra respectively and Shagufta Anurag, founder of architectural design consultancy Space Matrix in 2012.
The home industry is estimated to be anywhere between $25-30B but over 95% of it is unorganized and serviced by turnkey contractors, small studios, freelance designers, and carpenters. In the current scenario of scarce growth-stage venture investments, LivSpace is the only online home decor startup that has managed to raise fresh funds this year. It’s direct competitors, Pepperfry, Homelane and Urban Ladder, have all failed to attract any new investor attention towards themselves. Urban Ladder has recently raised $3 million in venture debt financing from Trifecta Capital to sustain its operations and look for further investments.
