Burrow raises $4.3M for its modular sofa

Burrow, a startup bringing a Casper-style approach to manufacturing and delivering sofas, is announcing that it has raised $4.3 million in seed funding.

This might not sound like the most obvious area for a startup to tackle — unless you’ve had the experience of trying to carry a couch up a twisty flight of stairs, or attempting to squeeze it through a narrow doorway.

Burrow’s sofas are delivered in a compact box, and assembly is only supposed to take 10 minutes, no tools required. They also have a modular design that makes them easier to move from house to house or apartment to apartment, and to expand with more seats when you have a larger living space.

You can buy Burrow’s sofas in one-, two-, three- or four-seat configurations — the three seater currently costs $1,095, with free shipping and a 30-day trial.

Stephen Kuhl explained via email that he and his co-founder Kabeer Chopra came up with the idea while they were studying at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, after they both had negative experiences buying couches — Chopra had to wait weeks for his West Elm sofa, which he carried home to avoid the shipping cost, while Kuhl spent hours assembling his Ikea sofa.

“Typically, sofas are either cheap, flimsy and extremely annoying to set up or heavy, expensive and take months to ship,” Kuhl said. “Simply put, there is no affordable, convenient sofa for the modern consumer. Either buy something that’s basically disposable or overpay for something that may not even fit through the front door of your next home.”

The Y Combinator-backed startup launched in April and says it has been growing 20 percent month-over-month since then, currently hitting a $7 million annualized revenue run rate. It’s also expanded its product lineup with a chaise sectional and an ottoman, and it moved its manufacturing from Mexico City to Mississippi.

The seed round was led by Red & Blue Ventures (a firm focused on startups coming out of the University of Pennsylvania), with participation from Interplay Ventures, Twitch.tv Founder Justin Kan, Y-Combinator CEO Michael Seibel and retail executive Ken Pilot.

“Burrow is the most exciting consumer products company out of Wharton since Warby Parker,” said Brett Topche, managing director at Red & Blue Ventures, in the funding announcement.