Furniture Rental Startup Furlenco Picks Up Fresh Funding

Bengaluru-headquartered furniture rental startup Furlenco has raised $773.1K from Mumbai-based Signet Chemical Corporation. The latest fundraise comes less than three weeks after the company secured $1.5 Mn (INR 10 Cr) in a debt funding round from a consortium of HNI investors via non-convertible debentures.

The development was first reported by Paper.vc.

As per filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs accessed by Inc42, the funding was raised against the issue of 500 negotiable certificates of deposit (NCDs) at $1,545.46 (INR 1 Lakh) apiece on February 13, 2018.

This brings the furniture rental startup’s total fundraise till date to around $30.1 Mn (INR 195 Cr).

An email query sent to Furlenco awaited response till the time of publication.

Furlenco: Journey From 2011 To Present

Founded by Ajith Mohan Karimpana in 2011, Furlenco is an online furniture renting platform offering home furniture on the subscription basis in Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, Mumbai and Pune.

It calls Lightbox Ventures, Axis Capital, Kris Gopalakrishnan’s Pratithi Trust and Trifecta Capital as some of its major investors. Recently in December 2017, the furniture rental startup raised $300K in funding from Bollywood actor Aamir Khan.

Earlier in June 2017, Furlenco also gave indications of becoming profitable by March 2018.

As per estimates, the overall furniture market in India generates between $15 Bn to $24 Bn annually. The organised segment is around 8%-10% and of this, around 15% is online.

In this space, Furlenco competes with a growing number of players including CityFurnish, GrabOnRent, FlatFurnish and RentoMojo.

Recently in December 2017, Rentickle, an online rental platform for furniture and home appliances, raised $4 Mn in a funding round led by Singapore-headquartered VC ThinKuvate and CX Partners Chairman Ajay Relan.

Prior to that, in July last year, Bengaluru-based consumer leasing startup RentoMojo raised $10 Mn in Series B funding from Bain Capital Ventures and Renaud Laplanche. It had earlier secured $5 Mn Series A funding from IDG Ventures and Accel Partners in July 2016.

By leveraging technology, startups like Furlenco are trying to make online furniture shopping more accessible and convenient for Indian consumers. How the company utilises the fresh funds from Signet Chemical Corporation remains to be seen.