Urban Ladder acqui-hires curated marketplace for furniture & home decor BuyNBrag

Bangalore-based Urban Ladder Home Decor Solutions Pvt Ltd, the company behind the online furniture shop Urban Ladder, has acqui-hired BuyNBrag.com, a curated online marketplace for furniture and home decor, from Gurgaon-based Social Scientist E-commerce Pvt Ltd.

As part of the deal, Prithvi Raj Tejavath, co-founder and CEO of BuynBrag, has been appointed as VP- home décor at Urban Ladder. According to the company, the acqui-hire has been made in an effort to strengthen and increase the talent pool of Urban Ladder.

Techcircle.in had exclusively reported the development last month.

"Over the last two years, we have been able to do interesting work in the furniture space. While we will continue to provide our customers with furniture, we feel now is the right time to add a wider home décor range to our catalogue," said Ashish Goel, co-founder and CEO, Urban Ladder.

"My team from BuynBrag and I look forward to contributing our expertise in the home décor segment for Urban Ladder. The amalgamation of the teams will lead to producing the best in the home décor space in the times to come," added Tejavath.

BuyNBrag was launched in 2012 by Tejavath and Ayush Jain (COO). An IIM Ahmedabad alumnus, Tejavath had earlier worked at companies including Diageo, Coca-Cola and Edelweiss Capital. Jain is an alumnus of Pennsylvania State University and is currently COO at Dignity Solutions Inc. In the past, he had worked at Grant Thornton, KPMG and ICF International.

BuyNBrag is a curated marketplace for modern furniture, dining sets, home office, storage, gifts & collectibles, lighting and art. The company has a team of interior designers and fashion experts to help consumer discover and shop on BuynBrag. It also invites the creators of products to set up shop with the firm and make it available to others.

Launched in July 2012 by Goel and 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 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.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)