Registered in Singapore, online home design platform Livspace has raised US$70 million in a Series C round led by Goldman Sachs and TPG Growth, with participation from existing backers Jungle Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures, according to a report by LiveMint.
The company currently operates in seven Indian cities, including Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. It plans to use the new funds to grow sales faster, in addition to expanding into six more Indian cities by 2019. Its platform functions as an online marketplace use visual elements to help connect homeowners with interior designers and other contractors.
To date, Livspace has raised at least US$97 million since it was founded in 2014, according to CrunchBase data. Aside from raising capital to improve its services and market reach, it has also used capital to acquire three companies, namely DezignUp, YoFloor, and Dwll IN.
Other companies targeting this market include Houzz and Homelane. Houzz, for instance, is a US-based company that has set its sights on India since 2016. For interior designers and other vendors looking to cast a wider net of homeowners, joining such platforms can help in achieving more sales and making the home renovation industry a more transparent and efficient one.
Takeaways
- According to the BBC in 2014, India’s expanding middle class has resulted in an interior design boom. Incidentally, that’s when most of the online interior design platforms targeting India were established to target this burgeoning market.
- Goldman Sachs might not be the most active investor in Asia’s early- to growth-stage technology scene, but it has pumped significant capital into both India and China. Besides Livspace, it was recently in the news for being an investor in China’s Tuhu, a car maintenance marketplace company.
Editor: Ben Jiang