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Bangalore-based Furdo, an online home decor platform that helps you “Virtually Walk” in your home, and see it from every corner, has secured $400K (INR 2.64 Cr.) in an angel round of funding from Bobby Reddy, CEO of Indus Homes Pvt Ltd, a real estate developer.
The biggest problem with Interior Design is everyone asks you to imagine! Imagine a blue wall here, imagine an oakwood TV Wall Unit against it and orange lights from the ceiling. Furdo has cut down that the “imagine” word by offering super-realistic 3D video to house owners looking to get their houses interior designed. The startup lets one Virtually Walk through his/her home and see every corner, before making a single buy.
Right from picking a design to buying all the products in the design, and finally making the design an on-ground reality, every step has been simplified by Furdo to make it a zero-headache model. It’s like a trial offer on design, if one doesn’t like it, they can try another. The firm charges customers INR 10,000 for its services.
Furdo was founded in January this year by Kiran Singh, Ishwar Sundararaman and Arvind Singh.
How it works:
- Select a design theme from the available designs on the portal.
- Upload your floor plan and fill out a few minor details
- The startup will then send you a 3D video of your home, by applying the chosen theme to your floor plan.
- By paying 10% advance, that can be adjusted against the Implementation Cost, users can discuss the plan with the provided interior designer by the company to customise their home.
- After customisation, user can order all the products online from Furdo’s partners.
- Besides, the company can also send in their designers to put everything together, and help making the design as selected by the user.
Speaking to Bhavadeep Reddy on what prompted his early investment in the idea, he said “I have witnessed the consumer problem at very close quarters, even experienced it myself . When Kiran showed me the 3D visualisation, I could see that it had potential to change the face of interior design. If all customers could walk through their Furdo-designed virtual homes before making any expensive purchase, it would make their interior design dilemma go away.”
According to market research firm TechNavio, the online home decor market in the country is expected to grow at a CAGR of 50.42% by 2019.
Few other players in this segment who have raised funding include, Hyderabad-based interior design technology startup Renderlogy raised $1 Mn in funding round led by Mumbai-based Astarc Ventures, online local marketplace for home decor services Foyr raised $1 Mn in pre-Series funding from Astarc Ventures, Bangalore-based mobile marketplace for home decor and interior design services Houzify run by Metamarket Pvt Ltd raised an undisclosed amount from former Infosys CFO TV Mohandas Pai and InMobi founder and CEO Naveen Tewari.
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