HomeLane raises $30 mn from Pidilite, others in series D financing

Evolvence, FJ Labs also participated in the interior design firm's series D round

HomeLane, a web-enabled interior design firm, has raised $30 million in series D financing from Evolvence India, Pidilite Group and FJ Labs.

Evolvence is a Dubai-based fund of funds with investment in some Indian private equity players. Pidilite is a publicly-listed adhesive and industrial chemicals maker, while FJ Labs, an investor in Fynd and Zoomcar, is a fund co-founded by OLX founder Fabrice Grinda.

Existing HomeLane investors Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners and JSW Ventures also participated in the round, which takes the total capital raised by the five-year old start-up to $46 million.

Interior designing has mostly been an offline affair. HomeLane, as well as its competitor LivSapce, bring together designers, paints and other inputs providers and customers over the internet. They decide on the contours of the project which is then executed by HomeLane in a tight time frame.

In October last year, LivSpace raised $70 million led by TPG Capital and is now reportedly in talks to raise another growth round.

HomeLane founder Srikanth Iyer said the capital wouldbe used to fuel expansion in six to eight new cities. It currently services Mumbai, National Capital Region, Chennai, Kolkata, NCR, Pune and Bengaluru, and has 16 experience centres across these cities.

The expansion would require the firm to on-board designers, vendors and installers. A part of the funds will also be used to scale SpaceCraft, HomeLane’s proprietary visualisation and design tool.

“This investment is very timely for the company, considering we are closer to EBITDA profitability, and will be used for growth, brand and technology,” said Iyer. “For us this is an important step in building a solid business in this space,” he noted.

As of now, the firm manages to complete 20 interior design projects a day of an average ticket-size of $10,000, according to Iyer. Each project typically goes on for weeks and HomeLane offers 45-day completion guarantee, which has come to be its biggest selling point.

HomeLane was started in 2014 by Iyer, who had earlier founded education firm TutorVista and later sold it to Pearson. He had stayed on as the CEO of the merged entity in 2013-14.