India-based home design and furnishing company Livspace has closed a $15 million Series B round which will be used to fund an expansion into new cities.
Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, which also included participation from Jungle Ventures and Helion — all three are existing investors. This new round takes Livspace, which was founded in December 2014, to more than $27 million from investors to date. Prior to today, its most recent raise was $8 million one year ago, which itself was an extension to an initial $4.6 million Series A that closed in early 2015.
Livspace aims to make designing and outfitting a home as easy as buying groceries or other products online. To do that, it connects homeowners and would-be homeowners with designers. It also includes e-commerce integration with modular kitchen and wardrobe systems, which, Livspace revealed, accounts for over half of the company’s revenue.
With this new money in the bank, the company is targeting a number of lofty goals — it wants to reach $100 million in annual revenue by the end of 2017, and to get there it is planning to expand its reach in India. Livspace currently serves Bangalore, but it is aiming to expand to Noida, Gurgaon and Mumbai this year. Next year, it is targeting moves into Pune and Hyderabad.
The startup also wants to get into VR — a medium that we know can be hugely powerful for home design, as U.S-based startup Modsy is proving. Livspace said it will set up new design studios equipped with VR technology to provide a more immersive experience to help users picture their new home designers before they are made.
The end goal, Livspace said, is to make it possible to outfit a house within 12 weeks, or complete installations within eight weeks, all via its online platform.
“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,” Vishal Gupta, managing director of Bessemer Venture Partners said in a statement.
Livspace is one of a number of startups aiming to use the internet to scale home and interior services. Another interesting approach is Rentmojo, a startup that lets you rent appliance and furniture. Rentomojo raised $5 million from Accel and IDG Ventures this summer.