After backing Snapdeal & BlueStone, Ratan Tata invests in online furniture store Urban Ladder

Ratan Tata, former chief of Tata Group and currently chairman emeritus of group's holding company Tata Sons, has invested an undisclosed amount in Bangalore-based Urban Ladder Home Decor Solutions Pvt Ltd, the company behind the online furniture shop Urban Ladder. The investment comes a couple of months after the business honcho made investments in e-commerce major Snapdeal.com and online jewellery retailer BlueStone.com.

"Tata understands the furniture space very well, specially our focus on product design since he has a lot of knowledge of the subject. His inputs and guidance will be very valuable for us" said Ashish Goel, co-founder and CEO of Urban Ladder. "His investment reassures us of the path we have taken towards creating value for customers with great products and exceptional service."

Launched in July 2012 by Goel and Rajiv Srivatsa, Urban Ladder deals across categories like beds, sofas, dining tables, tables and bar units, storage and shelves, seating and accessories (trays, mirrors, laundry basket, etc). Urban Ladder claims that it offers over 1,000 products across 25 categories. The firm also plans to expand the product range and service to 25-30 cities in India by March 2015.

In July this year, it had secured Rs 120 crore ($20 million) in its Series B round of funding led by Steadview Capital, with participation from existing investors, including SAIF Partners and Kalaari Capital. The company had earlier raised $5 million led by SAIF Partners in November 2013, and $1 million from Kalaari Capital in August 2012.

Last month, Techcircle.in first reported that Urban Ladder was in advanced talks to acqui-hire BuyNBrag.com, a curated online marketplace for furniture and home decor, from Gurgaon-based Social Scientist E-commerce Pvt Ltd.

Urban Ladder is mainly competing with Rocket Internet-backed FabFurnish and Bertelsmann-backed Pepperfry, among others.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)