Livspace raises $8M in funding from existing investors Helion, Bessemer and Jungle Ventures
Livspace, an end-to-end home design and décor platform for homeowners and designers, today announced that it had raised $8M, in an internal round of funding. This round of funding comes nine months after their Series A round of $4.6 million.
Founded in 2012, Livspace allows customers to discover a variety of interior designs for all types of rooms, personalise the design - by colour, material, style and get the exact look for their homes in a few weeks. They claim to be a design and technology first team and employ a combination of data science, algorithms, and industrial design to create unique experiences for homeowners and scale the job of interior designers.
Anuj Srivastava, Ramakant Sharma and Shagufta Anurag are the co-founders of Livspace. In the past Anuj has been involved in product leadership roles on products like Google Maps, Google Commerce, and Google Ads. He is currently the CEO, while Ramakant, an IIT Kanpur alumnus and former VP, Engineering at Myntra, is the Director, Head of Technology of Livspace. Shagufta, founder of Space Matrix, is the Chief Design Evangelist.
In March 2015 Livspace acquired DezignUp, a design community and marketplace for consumers and design professionals. In May 2015, they acquired their second company Dwll.in, a curated online network of interior designers. Their main goal is to create content and community driven eCommerce for the home design and décor space.
Sector overview
The home design and décor market in India is estimated to be $30Bn, with the industry poised to grow at over 25% YoY. Livspace is targeting a large chunk of this market that is currently fragmented and aims to the dominant player in the space.
Veteran investor and entrepreneur Srikanth Iyer ventured into interior design with HomeLane in November 2014. They raised $4.5M in a Series A round from Sequoia Capital and Aarin Capital in February 2015. Founded in 2013, Nestopia claims to be a LinkedIn+ TripAdvisor for interior design industry, Shawprs was another startup which is rumoured to have shut down. Founded by Ashish Goel and Rajiv Srivatsa back in 2012, UrbanLadder is also well backed by investors like Ratan Tata. Before this, the company raised Series B funding. Fabfurnish, Pepperfy and Furlenco are also some notable enterprises in this sector.
Related read: Home and furnishing segment in Indian e-commerce prepares for consolidation
Future plans
All existing institutional investors Helion Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Jungle Ventures, participated in this round and Livspace also saw investments from prominent angels, including Gokul Rajaram, who had recently joined as a special advisor. Livspace plans to utilise the funds to expand across metros in India, enhance design content and technology, hire senior level talent across verticals and build mobile and designer oriented products. The team currently consists of about 165 employees and they aim to reach 250 people by the end of 2015.
The funds will also be used to accelerate their momentum across product and design innovation, user engagement on mobile and web, and revenue growth. Anuj, CEO and Co-founder of Livspace said,
We’re seeing strong growth and business fundamentals across the board and have created a content, and community driven commerce business in the home design space. We're inspired by the confidence shown in us by our investors and are committed to creating a world class internet company out of India.
Website: www.livspace.com
