Astarc Ventures invests Rs 6 cr in online home decor firm Renderlogy

Brick Eagle, a Mumbai-based private equity firm, also committed Rs 30 crore in Series-B to Renderlogy for later this year

Astarc Ventures, the new strategic investment arm of Mumbai-based $400-million worth Astarc Group, has invested Rs 6 crore in Renderlogy, a Hyderabad-based online home decor solutions provider.

The early-stage fund plans to park its investments in tech-focused, tech-enabled and disruptive technology companies in emerging industries like mobile payments, digital healthcare, consumer Internet, Internet of Things (IoT), digital communications, 3D printing and data analytics.

“We evaluated the idea (of investing in Renderlogy) based on the size and attractiveness of the market opportunity, leadership potential, vision and passion of the founder, and the traction made so far,” Salil Musale, co-founder of Astarc Ventures, said in a release recently.

The interior designing and home decor market in India is estimated at about Rs 125,000 crore.

Founded by Shailesh Goswami, an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and a former senior director at Microsoft, and Brinda, who was running an interior designing practice called Infinite Ideas Interiors, in June 2014 in Hyderabad, Renderlogy had raised Rs 10 crore in a Series-A funding from Brick Eagle in February 2015.

Brick Eagle, a Mumbai-based private equity firm that invests in the Indian affordable housing development ecosystem, had also committed Rs 30 crore in Series-B to Renderlogy for later this year.

At present, Renderlogy is offering B2B (business-to-business) solutions. Its B2C (business-to-consumer) interior designing portal, built in-house using its patent-pending Interiors Definition Technology, will be launched in June 2015.

The free-for-registration B2C portal will enable the end-user to click-drag-and-drop to customise and virtually see how his/her planned affordable house would look like. "We would like to see every home in the metros have a 3D visualisation on our platform," said Brinda, co-founder of Renderlogy.