HomeLane secures Rs 33 Cr in a bridge round led by existing investors

Online home interiors and renovation startup Homelane has raised Rs 33 crore in a bridge round led by existing investors JSW Ventures, Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital.

A bridge financing normally comes in when a company's runway is shorter than its future financing options.

Homelane is actively in the market to raise $50-100 million, which it aims to close in next 6 months, according to Srikanth Iyer, Homelane founder and CEO. Homelane has till date raised about $68 million.

The Bangalore-based startup will use the funds to double its offline experience centers in existing and new markets as well as strengthen the technology platform and brand.

“HomeLane’s strategic focus has always been to provide a seamless home designing and furnishing experience, and we have grown 5 times in the last 3 months, and are looking to continue at the same rate in the next financial year.” Srikanth Iyer told ET.

The company which currently has nine experience centres, plans to exit fiscal 2019 at Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of about Rs 400 crore.

Homelane competes with TPG Growth and Goldman Sachs backed Livspace, Westbridge funded Design Cafe as well as furniture marketplace Pepperfry and online brand Urban Ladder.

These companies offers a marketplace for customers to buy interior designs online from designers while taking care of execution. On the supply side they also offers software tools for designers to streamline their workflow.

Homelane which was founded in 2014 by Rama Harinath, Srikanth Iyer, and Vivek Parasuram, is currently present in cities including Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR. The startup currently has a team size of 480 people.

The company had earlier raised $10 million (approximately Rs 64.3 crore) in a round led by Accel Partners along with participation from Sequoia Capital and RB Investments in 2017 which was used to fuel growth and technology innovation and strengthen operations.