Chris Burch’s Office Products E-Tailer Poppin Raises Another $17 Million

Attractive, decked-out offices are a good way to attract new talent, which has led many tech companies (and others) to furnish their office spaces via Chris Burch’s workplace products company Poppin, which counts among its clients LinkedIn, Rent the Runway, Squarespace, Warby Parker, and the NFL Network.

Today, the company is announcing an additional $17 million in Series C funding. The round sees new investorsFifth Third Capital Holdings and West Capital Advisors joining up with prior investors Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital, and Burch’s own Creative Capital.

Poppin’s goal, simply put, has been to infuse the boring office products industry with colorful, but affordable alternatives to everything from desktop accessories like bright red staplers or fluorescent tape dispensers, to furniture and décor for the office, kitchen, break room and more.

These items are sold online, direct-to-consumer via the Poppin website, in addition to Poppin’s growing corporate business which today includes over 4,000 clients. More recently, the company has also partnered with national retail chains on its wholesale program, which is bringing Poppin products to The Container Store, Crate & Barrel, Staples, Urban Outfitters, and over 90 college bookstores. By back-to-school season’s start, Poppin products were to be found in over 1,400 retail locations.

The company doesn’t disclose the size and scale of its online business, however, declining to offer figures related to customers, website visitors, sales or revenue. But the product line itself and Poppin team is growing, with now over 150 product styles for the former, and a staff of 60 for the latter.

The company had previously raised $17 million in Series A and B rounds.

This latest investment is being put toward technology investments, the company tells us, including new design tools aimed at simplifying the discovery and collaboration process when office planning, plus employee on-boarding programs and improvements to the customization and re-ordering processes.

Poppin will also soon be rolling out an updated version of its “Design a Desk” software, an online point-and-click tool that lets you visualize and mix-and-match colors on a virtual desk, allowing you to see how the products will look together on a real desk before ordering. It’s a nifty idea, but the current version of the product could use some optimizations, as there tends to be a lag when you click around.

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Poppin says it will also begin to incorporate more user-generated content throughout the site, in order to leverage its active customer community.