Design Cafe raises Rs 200 Cr from WestBridge Capital

The latest fund that comes more than a year after it raised an undisclosed amount, will be used for expanding the operations of Design Cafe in six other cities.  

Bengaluru-based home interior design startup Design Cafe has raised Rs 200 crore ($28.5 million) funding in Series B led by WestBridge Capital. Existing investor Fireside Ventures also participated in this round that comes more than a year after the company raised an undisclosed amount from Fireside and early-stage investors Siddharth Pansari and Apurva Salarpuria.

With this new round, Design Cafe will be looking to utilise the additional capital to expand its operations in India – namely six other cities including Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, and Hyderabad. Boutique investment bank Sprout Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to Design Café on this transaction.

Shezaan Bhojani, Co-founder of Design Café said. “These investors share our long-term mindset and align with our values and we are thrilled to have them join us in our journey to script the next chapter of Design Cafe.”

Along with fellow architect and designer Gita Ramanan, Bhojani had co-founded the online decor platform in 2015 with the ultimate goal of offering end-to-end interior solutions for homes. The duo has come a long way since then, allowing their consumers to visualise their home in virtual reality before execution and thereby increasing their footprint across various cities in the country.

This initial success and a subsequent rapid scale-up helped Design Cafe rope in confidence from homegrown investment firm Westbridge Capital.

“Their high customer satisfaction rate is an excellent achievement and is a testimony to the company’s deep domain expertise in this sector, hard work and good business judgment. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with Design Cafe in their journey of taking the business to even greater heights and building a marquee brand in home design services and products,” said Westbridge Capital’s Managing Partner, Sandeep Singhal.