[The F Word] Livspace raises $70 M in Series C funding led by TPG Growth and Goldman Sachs

The largest Series C round raised by a B2C vertical ecommerce company in India will be used to expand and launch new design centres, and build capabilities on Livspace’s design platform.

Livspace, India’s largest home interior and renovation platform, on Wednesday announced that it had raised $70 million in Series C funding. The round was led by TPG Growth and Goldman Sachs, and included participation from existing investors Jungle Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures.

This deal also marks the largest Series C round raised by a B2C vertical ecommerce company in India. This is welcome news since global home furnishings company Ikea has already invested Rs 10,500 crore in the country and plans to double the investment in a decade. YourStory reported first that the top 12 Indian home furnishings companies, Urban Ladder, PepperFry, LivSpace and Home Lane among them, have raised $466.2 million (Rs 3,017 crore) in VC funds, a small figure when compared to Ikea’s investment.

Going back to the Livspace fund raise, Avendus Capital was the financial advisor to the company. Before this round of funding, Livspace had raised a total of $33.6 million from Jungle Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Helion Ventures, and UC-RNT.

Akshay Tanna, Principal, TPG Growth, said, “Livspace is a groundbreaking company that is disrupting the fragmented interior-design-and-renovation ecosystem in India. They’ve registered strong growth in a short period of time, and we are confident that their approach has tremendous potential to extend across several markets.”

Top organised player

In a little over three years, since its launch in 2015, Livspace has emerged as the top organised player in India’s very fragmented home interiors and renovation market, which is expected to exceed $23 billion by 2022. Over the last 18 months, Livspace’s gross revenue has more than quadrupled, and the company also achieved unit-economics profitability across its previously launched markets.

Livspace also boasts the region’s biggest seller community in this industry: it attracted applications from 25,000 interior designers and small design studios, 10 percent of which are now certified partners. Livspace services seven major metro areas in India where it delivers interiors, including kitchens, wardrobes, furniture, décor, and provides all contracting services (flooring, false ceilings, painting). Operating at an unprecedented scale, the company completes a home interior project every two hours.

Livspace’s Co-founder and CEO Anuj Srivastava believes that support from some of the world’s best-known investors in this round will help propel Livspace to its next phase of growth. “Our vision is to evolve Livspace into one of the biggest and most admired consumer internet companies to emerge out of India,” he said.

“In an industry that has traditionally struggled with scale, we have created a first-of-its-kind, design-to-installation technology platform and a marketplace model that is highly scalable. The model can inherently deliver strong unit economics,” Anuj added.

Designing the future

Livspace will use the funds to expand its operations to six more metro areas by 2019 for a total of 13, while achieving deeper penetration in existing markets. Livspace launched operations in Hyderabad this August, and is on track to hit over $125-135 million in annualised gross revenue by March 2019.

To fuel its expansion efforts, the firm plans to grow its offline footprint through Livspace Design Centres, the company’s experiential stores that play a key role in its omnichannel strategy. The latest design centres — both small and large format — will offer a new experience to its consumers. In addition, the company will continue to invest in the growth of its design partner community and vendor marketplace. On the product side, new home interior solutions and products, together with new technology innovations, are planned for both homeowners and design partners. They will be delivered through Livspace’s proprietary design-to-installation platform, Canvas.

Ramakant Sharma, Co-founder and COO, Livspace, said, “In a very short time, Livspace has grown to operate at a scale that’s unprecedented for this extremely fragmented industry. To design the next 1 million homes—and deliver a predictable experience for this highly complex solution—technological and operational innovation will form the backbone of the company,” he explained. “We have ambitious plans to expand across top knowledge cities, and are excited to partner with TPG Growth and Goldman Sachs on this exciting journey.”

Livspace launched operations in Bengaluru in 2015. Its three-sided marketplace brings together homeowners and a curated community of designers and vendors. Homeowners get access to interiors for all rooms in a home, designed and delivered in a predictable, hassle-free manner. In 2016, Livspace launched Canvas, world’s first design-to-installation platform for the interior design industry; the cloud platform creates unique experiences for homeowners and scales the job of interior designers.

“Livspace is an innovative and fast-growing Indian B2C internet company,” said Niladri Mukhopadhyay, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. Talking about the investment in Livspace, he added, “This investment is in line with our focus on backing excellent management teams that uniquely address the needs and aspirations of India’s growing middle class.”