Furlenco Starts ‘House of Kieraya’ as Umbrella Brand
In a significant move, online furniture rental start up Furlenco has created House of Kieraya, an umbrella brand that will include Furlenco as a sub-brand, furniture subscription service Unlmtd and its remanufactured furniture offering Furbicle. “We want to dominate the entire furniture market with different models. We believe it cannot be one model (like rentals only). HoK creates a continuum of sorts for all furniture needs,” says Ajith Mohan Karimpana, founder and chief executive, Furlenco. HoK will be a house of brands and any new brand offering—like the one planned for launch next month—will be a part of it. The umbrella entity is targeting Rs 2,500 crore revenue by 2026. It also plans to expand to 25 cities in the next three years, up from 13 at present. Last month, Furlenco raised $140 million (Rs 1,000 crore) in a mix of debt and equity as part of its latest funding round led by Zinnia Global Fund. The funding will help the company expand its geographic reach, launch new products and plans, and support marketing. Users can now rent individual pieces of furniture, just like à la carte at Furlenco. If they want multiple pieces of furniture, like a buffet, they can check out Unlmtd, to say, furnish a three-bedroom flat. For around Rs 70,000 a year, they can rent out 15 pieces of furniture. The company is also launching a monthly plan for Rs 4,000 for users who want to hire nine pieces of furniture, including dining set, beds with mattresses, and chairs and tables. Under Furbicle, HoK will buy used furniture and even unboxed items (like returns from Amazon, Flipkart, and other e-commerce companies), remake them and sell at 25%-30% cheaper prices than Urban Ladder or Pepperfry. Karimpana claims the offering is also better than buying from classified platforms such as Quikr or OLX. “The difference is that we will ourselves buy, re-manufacture, and then sell furniture. It will be affordable for budget customers.” According to the company, it is able to cover the entire furniture market — from rentals to resale — as it has created the requisite knowledge base and experience apart from having its own logistics, warehouses, and design team. The remanufacturing will be done at its warehouses. Karimpana says the company is already at 173% of the pre-Covid-19 levels. “From an adoption perspective, people realise that subscription is an affordable model. When we launched in Jaipur recently, we did 200 houses in just 15 days. People don’t want to be caught up with assets, but want to rent them,” he adds.
Tags : ALLIED Furniture rental online Start-up Furlenco Starts ‘House of Kieraya’ Umbrella Brand Furbicle