Design and furniture start-up Livspace, owned by Home Interior Designs E-commerce Pvt. Ltd, has raised Rs.100 crore from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Hellion Venture partners and Jungle Ventures, said three people aware of the development on condition of anonymity.
The firm, loosely based on US-based home design firm Houzz, was founded by Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma, former senior executives at Google Inc. and Myntra Designs Pvt. Ltd respectively, along with Shagufta Anurag, founder of architectural design consultancy Space Matrix.
The firm has already raised about $12.6 million in two rounds between December 2015 and August 2016 from Helion Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Jungle Ventures.
Livspace co-founder Anuj Srivastava confirmed the development.
Livspace not only offers home interior design solutions and fulfils the order, it also sells furniture across categories such as living, dining and bedrooms. The company also runs a modular kitchen and wardrobe business.
The company has also acquired two start-ups in quick succession to fuel growth. The company acquired YoFloor, a mobile platform that offers a virtual trial room for home design in September 2015. In May last year, Livspace acquired Dwll, a curated online network of online designers. In March 2015, the company acquired DezignUP, an online community and marketplace for designers and consumers.
Livspace launched a home design automation platform, which will connect the designers on board with customers in real time and speed up the process of overall delivery, two months ago.
It essentially competes with the likes of Sequoia Capital-backed Homelane (Homevista Décor and Furnishing Pvt. Ltd), other than Urban Ladder Home Décor Solutions Pvt. Ltd, another Sequoia Capital portfolio and Pepperfry (Trendsutra Platform Services Pvt. Ltd), backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Urban Ladder, which has so far raised about $77 million from venture capital firms, and Pepperfry, the most well-capitalised online furniture store with about $128 million in its, initially started out by selling furniture. Both firms have, however, launched home interior solutions, modular furniture and kitchen in the last 12-15 months to compete with younger rivals such as Homelane and Livspace.
The investment in Livspace comes at a time when venture capital investment in India plummeted 58% in the June quarter over the previous three-month period, according to a report by KPMG and CB Insights, mirroring increasing investor caution towards funding start-ups.
VC firms ploughed $583 million into India in April-June, down from $1.4 billion in January-March, said the report. VC investments in India have been on a decline since October-December. Investments in the December quarter halved to $1.5 billion from $2.9 billion in July-September.
The online furniture segment has barely seen any big ticket investment in the last 12 months.
Among the bigger start-ups, Pepperfry last raised $100 million in July 2015, while Urban Ladder mopped up $50 million in April Last year. Urban Ladder raised debt capital of $3 million from Trifecta Capital, Mint reported on 24 August.
