Furlenco Raises INR 20 Cr In Venture Debt From Blacksoil

Furniture rental startup Furlenco has raised INR 20 Cr in a venture debt funding round from Blacksoil Capital, one of the most prominent venture debt investors in the Indian market.

Founded in 2012 by Ajith Mohan Karimpana, Furlenco operates as a furniture subscription platform. To date, the company claims to have covered over 150K homes across eight major cities in India with AUM (assets under management) over INR 200 Cr.

“We have a lot of exciting initiatives planned for this year that will unravel over the next six to nine months. We are delighted to have BlackSoil as our latest partner. BlackSoil has quickly emerged as a prominent venture debt player helping startups across the board in their growth journey,” said Furlenco founder and CEO Ajith Karimpana.

Furlenco has raised close to $51 Mn in equity funding from investors like Lightbox Ventures, Crescent Ventures, Deepika Padukone & Burman Family Office and has also raised over $45 Mn in debt funding from its strong HNI network and various financial institutions.

The company’s last funding round was in November last year when it raised INR 53 Cr in a venture debt funding round led by Aditya Burman and Rangoli Resorts.

However, like most consumer services in the Indian market, the startup is also in the red, owing to higher acquisition costs. In the fiscal year 2018-19, Furlenco recorded an INR 80 Cr loss, despite healthy growth in revenue.

The company believes that even in the post-Covid market, more people are choosing not to own furniture. Furlenco offers design-conscious Indians the flexibility to choose the best products, without the hassle and additional cost associated with owning furniture.

“Furlenco is offering an alternative solution that delivers high value to the customers while providing much-needed flexibility. The subscription model proved to be robust during the Covid period and it is our pleasure to partner with Furlenco to help them achieve the next level of growth,” said Blacksoil Group cofounder Ankur Bansal.

BlackSoil is a sector-agnostic alternative credit platform and has deployed INR 1,000 Cr in the last four years in more than 80 funding deals. Blacksoil’s past deals include OYO, Spinny, Purplle, Zetwerks, Vogo and TVF amongst others. Blacksoil also recently raised INR 126 Crore in the first close for its maiden secured credit fund.

According to some estimates, of India’s total INR 1,294,06 Cr furniture market, 85-90% is unorganised and offline and online furniture retailers like Reliance-owned Urban Ladder, Bengaluru-based D2C brand Wakefit, Furlenco, Rentomojo and Pepperfry cater to just 2% of the market. However, according to market research firm RedSeer Consulting, 14% of the furniture market in India is organised, and with the growth in online channels, this share could rise to 20% by 2022, when the furniture market is expected to reach a market size of $44 Bn.