Online furniture startup Woodenstreet secures Series A funding

Jaipur-based online furniture platform Woodenstreet has raised $1 million (around Rs 6.8 crore) in a Series A round of funding led by Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF).

The fresh capital will help the company expand into new business verticals such as interior design services, it said in a statement.

The company, which has physical stores in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Jaipur, will also use the funds to open new stores at other major cities.

The startup has about 200 employees and it claims to deliver across 30 cities.

Wooden Street, operated by The Woodenstreet Furnitures Pvt. Ltd, was co-founded by Lokendra Ranawat, Dinesh Pratap Singh, Virendra Ranawat and Vikas Baheti in May 2015. 

Lokendra Ranawat, who is also the chief executive officer, is an MBA from the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad. Baheti worked with US-based computer maker Dell prior to founding Woodenstreet. Virendra Ranawat has a diploma in management from XLRI, Jamshedpur. Singh is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode.

The startup sells custom-made wood furniture at various price points. It lets customers to either select products from an existing catalogue of pre-made designs, requesting modifications as per their requirements, or directly interact with designers. It offers customisation on the different type of wood used, wood finishes, fabric types and colours.

“We believe custom-made, space-saving furniture is not just a trend but the future. We wanted every customer to own furniture of their choice being in the most compact manner,” Lokendra Ranawat said in the statement.

Woodenstreet operates in a segment that has heavily funded furniture e-tailers Pepperfry and UrbanLadder as well as horizontal e-commerce companies Amazon and Flipkart.

Mumbai-headquartered TrendSutra Platform Services Pvt. Ltd, which runs Pepperfry, raised Rs 250 crore in a fresh round of funding from asset management company State Street Global Advisors in March.

The same month, Bengaluru-based UrbanLadder raised Rs 77 crore in a fresh round of funding from existing investors.

In January last year, Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund had invested an undisclosed amount in Direct Create Pvt. Ltd, an online and offline B2B marketplace that brings together artisans, designers and buyers.