Online furniture store Urban Ladder raises $15M: Report

Bangalore based online furniture store Urban Ladder Home Décor Solutions (urbanladder.com) has raised INR 1.02 billion (US$15 million approx), according to business publication, Mint, which had access to documents available with the Registrar of Companies. Existing investor, Kalaari Capital, pooled in INR 306.4 million (US$4.56 million approx), SAIF Partners invested INR 304.6 million (US$4.54 million), Steadview Capital, contributed INR 271.6 million (US$4.04 million approx) while Sequoia Capital chipped in INR 135.8 million (US$2 million approx), according to the documents. Urban Ladder refused to comment on the developments. Prior to this, the furniture brand had raised close to $77 million from Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners, Steadview Capital, Kalaari Capital and others across four rounds of funding. It also raised venture debt worth $3 million (INR 200 million approx) from Trifecta Capital, in August last year. Besides selling on urbanladder.com, the company had last year tied up with Amazon and Flipkart to sell part of its catalog on the marketplaces to increase traction.

Moving on ground

The investment comes at a time when the company is trying to build a strong offline presence through brick and mortar stores. The company, according to a report will invest INR 300 million (US$4.47 million approx) to set up 10 offline brand experience stores in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, this year. According to the aforementioned report on The Hindu BusinessLine, the first brand-experience store spanning 3,500 sqft, located within the company’s office, went live last October, and the second store is scheduled to go live in Q1 FY 2018. The company plans to set up its first three small-to-medium-sized stores in its home market Bangalore, followed by the rest in New Delhi and Mumbai. Urban Ladder competes with Pepperfry.