Urban Ladder appoints Kartikeya Misra as its VP, products & design

Bangalore-based Urban Ladder Home Decor Solutions Pvt Ltd, which runs online furniture shop Urban Ladder, has appointed Kartikeya Misra as its vice president (VP) and head of online product. In his new role, Misra will define and drive the overall online product roadmap (including strategy and execution) with the engineering team. Storefront, mobile, and internal systems will also be among his key focus areas.

"Urban Ladder has been at the forefront of online product and mobile technology development. Misra's experience in this field will help us further strengthen our foothold in this space," said Rajiv Srivatsa, co-founder and COO, Urban Ladder.

Misra has over 13 years of work experience in varied verticals of product development. Prior to Urban Ladder, he was director- product management at Yahoo, where he managed the company's international sports properties, including Yahoo Cricket. Before that, he was senior product manager at HotJobs.com. he had earlier also worked as a software engineer at Infosys Technologies. An IIT Kanpur alumnus, Misra also holds a MBA degree in systems, marketing and corporate strategy from IIM, Bangalore.

Launched in July 2012 by Ashish 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). It claims to offer 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.

Of late, the company has been aggressive with its hiring efforts and plans to triple its headcount by the end of this year. In August last year, Urban Ladder had appointed Avinash Shekhar as its chief financial officer (CFO). Last week, the company appointed Geetika Mehta as its director of human resources (HR). Before Urban Ladder, Geetika was heading the HR department of apparel manufacturer Puma.

The startup had raised $20 million in its Series B round of funding led by Steadview Capital, with participation from existing investors, including SAIF Partners and Kalaari Capital, in June last year.