Changing and moving is a part of life. With the rise in corporate culture, shifting has become more frequent among the youngsters.
Nowadays, people don’t settle in one place for their entire life. They tend to shift due to work, weather, or other reasons. When it comes to shifting, the first thing that gives a sense of stress is the shifting of furniture.
The process of furniture shifting can be prone to damage and also expensive. So, a great idea here is to rent furniture. This means you can keep and enjoy the furniture for as long as you like. Plus, you don’t have to worry about shifting, as you can return it.
In India, we have many furniture rental startups that make the process easy.
In simple words, furniture renting helps you to enjoy good quality furnishings without a long commitment. It helps you to adjust to changing living situations.
If you are someone who keeps on moving from one place to another, this is the perfect choice for you. Buying furniture and moving it every time you have to shift can be troubling. This can lead to damage to some high-end furnishings. Also, shifting furniture is quite an expensive process.
So, you can find furniture as per your preferences and need anywhere. Then you can make payments monthly or for a whole year. In this way, you can have the furniture without any lifelong commitment to it.
Furniture Rental Startups in India
Gone are the days when people would buy furniture and settle with it for the rest of their lives. The youngsters nowadays don’t like such sort of commitments with anything.
They like the concept of moving, changing, exploring. Youngsters nowadays keep on moving for work, exploration, or adventure. So, furniture renting startups is a new go-to platform for many.
These startups enable people to order furnishings online. People simply have to pay rent for the time they need the furniture. When their need is over, they can send it back. This no long-term commitment is what is contributing to the success of many startups.
The following are some of the startups for renting furniture in India:
Pepperfry
Pepperfry – Top Furniture Rental Startup in India
Pepperfry is an online platform for all kinds of home furnishings shopping. It was launched in the year 2011. Its founders are Ambareesh Murty and Ashish Shah. The startup has its headquarters in Mumbai, India.
Cityfurnish – Top Furniture Rental Startup in India
Cityfurnish, the e-commerce platform offers the facility of renting furniture. It was founded in 2015. Its founders are Neerav Jain, Saurabh Gupta, and Vinit Jain. The company is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, India.
Cityfurnish offers a wide variety of modern contemporary furniture. People can rent quality and durable furniture right from their homes. It offers services like free delivery and setup at home. They also offer free maintenance of the furniture.
An Indian startup, Cityfurnish not only offers services in Gurugram but also to other big cities.
Rentickle
Rentickle – Top Furniture Rental Startup in India
It is a startup for renting furniture. It launched in the year 2015. Amit Sodhi and Vineet Chawla are the founders. The startup has headquarters in Delhi.
The company’s main goal appears in its tagline. This is to help people turn their houses into homes. It has home furniture items, home furnishings, electronics, and other appliances on rent. The quality of the products offered here is exclusive with a wide variety.
This became so popular that it was able to gain more than 10,000 subscribers in its first two years. Since then, it has been a go-to stop for the people who wants to rent furnishings.
Furlenco
Furlenco – Top Furniture Rental Startup in India
This startup for renting furniture was founded in the year 2012. Ajith Karimpana is the founder of the Furlenco. The company has headquarters located in Bengaluru.
Here, people can rent a range of quality furniture like beds, dining tables, sofas, and also full room setup packs. The platform also offers great discounts on furniture to the customers.
Furlenco is in service in many metropolitan cities of India.
Furlenco- Furniture Rental Startup in India
Rentomojo
Rentomojo – Top Furniture Rental Startup in India
Another popular Indian platform for renting furniture is Rentomojo. It was established in the year 2014. Geetansh Bamania, an ex-IITM, is the founder of the startup. The headquarters of the company is in Bengaluru.
Rentomojo provides various categories of products. From furniture to electronics, the platform has everything for furnishing. The company also offers smartphones for rent.
The company provides services beyond Bengaluru as well.
Guarented
Guarented – Top Furniture Rental Startup in India
This is another popular startup in India for having furniture on rent. It was established in the year 2015. Its founders are Abhimanyu Dikshit, Harshwardhan Raikwar, and Prateek Agrawal. The startup has its headquarters in Bengaluru, India.
The company enables people can pay affordable prices and get durable quality furniture on rent. The idea is to cater to the needs of people who don’t want to own things. Also, the people who are always on a move or have troubles with finances.
On Guarented, you can find a great variety of beds, refrigerators, dining tables, mattresses, sofa, etc.
Voko
Voko – Top Furniture Rental Startup in India
Voko, the Indian startup for renting was established in the year 2016. Its founders are Bhuvnesh Sharma and Harsh Vardhan. Both of them were earlier employees at OYO. The company’s headquarters are in Gurugram.
The startup focuses on the needs of youngsters moving from one place to another. It has a variety of furniture, electronics, and other appliances. These include Television, fridge, beds, tables, etc.
Conclusion
With the advent of technology and digitalization, everyone wants everything on their phones. The lifestyle among the youngsters is getting more and more mobile. This mobility has given a boost to furniture rental startups.
The furniture rental startups enable people to find a variety right in their smartphones. They can browse from an endless range of variety and pay rent for it. These startups also offer discounts, free installation, and maintenance. In India, there is a rise in mobility and income among working professionals. This is an ideal atmosphere for furniture rental startups to grow more in the future.
FAQs
Which are the top furniture rental startups in India?
Top 7 Furniture Rental Startups in India are:
Pepperfry
Guarented
Cityfurnish
Rentickle
Furlenco
Rentomojo
Voko
Can we rent furniture from Pepperfry?
Yes, Pepperfry provides furniture renting service since 2017.
Which are the Indian start up dealing in online furniture sales?
Some of the top Indian Startups that deals in selling furniture are:
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by CityFurnish.
Furniture, appliances and interior equipment adds life to any space be it a home/ office/ gym or a restaurant. These units besides keeping space organized, makes our lives easy and efficient. However, owning high quality, well designed, highly efficient furniture and appliances could cost you a fortune.
Solving this issue is a Gurugram based startup, CityFurnish. With CityFurnish, one can own high quality furniture and appliances based on affordable rental subscriptions, rather than spending a fortune on buying them. CityFurnish provides a wide array of products within the domain of furniture and appliances on rental subscription. Here is a how CityFurnish is making a mark for itself in the Indian furniture rental Industry.
Read about CityFurnish Founders, Competitors, Growth, Funding, Business Model, Revenue, Awards etc.,
CityFurnish (CityFurnish India Pvt Ltd.) provides products ranging from furniture, furnishings, consumer appliances and fitness equipment on rental subscription. Besides offering high quality rental products for residential purpose, the company also has an accelerating presence into the commercial and hospitality segments
CityFurnish’s vision is to be a benchmark in the country’s Furniture Rental Industry. The brand is currently servicing Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad/Noida and Hyderabad and plans to expand its business soon.
The key focus area for CityFurnish founder, Neerav Jain is to drive the Company towards growth by way of strengthening the brand and by leveraging upon inherent strengths of the business, offering a one stop solution to customers for their complete furniture and furnishing needs.
This is how CityFurnish Works-
Customers can choose from the variety of products, packages and add-ons available, if there is no package catering to your needs; you can make your own package by adding the individual items in your cart.
Customers need to make an advance payment for one month and provide some documents for the KYC process.
Once the payment is done and documents are provided, the products will be dispatched within a period of a maximum of 72 hour.
CityFurnish is revolutionizing the furniture industry by providing quality furniture and home appliances on easy monthly rental. Renting furniture is the new way to live, and is easy on the pocket. Other benefits of renting furniture are that you don’t need to be stuck with the same old furniture for years and hence, get a chance to renovate the home quite often, as and when one desires. You can also change the furniture according to your needs and not have to deal with the hassle of buying/selling, shifting and relocating.
CityFurnish’s products are crafted in their own state of the art manufacturing facility based in Rajasthan and are thoughtfully designed to provide utmost comfort.
Furniture and Appliances Industry Details
The Indian Furniture Market is anticipated to register a CAGR of 13.38% during the forecast period i.e. 2018-2023. The market is expected to reach USD 61.09 Billion by the end of 2023. Further, the India furniture market is anticipated to achieve a Y-o-Y growth rate of 14.30% in 2023 as compared to the previous year.
The technological advancements such as availability of high speed internet networks such as 4G and spiked absorption of smart gadgets is boosting the e-retail sector in India. These advancements further provide ease to the customers to buy furniture through online channels. Additionally, the growing online furniture selling companies are creating a great boost to the furniture industry.
While, the total furniture market is $20 billion and growing at 15% YoY, Rental market currently is valued at $6 billion in India. The team at CityFurnish estimates that in the next five years the total market for rental furniture would be above $20 billion in India.
Neerav Jain (CEO) and Saurabh Gupta (CTO) are the foundersof CityFurnish.
In a career spanning 3 years, Neerav worked in various key positions at Climpex Furniture and his family business Chandra shekhar Exports before founding CityFurnish. Neerav has extensive experience in furniture industry in managing sales, marketing and Business management (B2B and B2C) and formulating strategies for growth with an overall business perspective.
Neerav Jain (CEO) and Saurabh Gupta (CTO)
Saurabh Gupta, is the co-founder and CTO of CityFurnish. He completed his M.Tech from IIT Roorkee. Before joining Neerav Jain as the Co- founder at CityFurnish, he worked with Vodafone and Amdocs and has experience spanning 10 years. Saurabh is a skilled technology professional and possesses expertise in digital marketing.
Currently CityFurnish has a team of 100+ member across 7 cities. Work culture is value driven to provide value to their customers. At present, they are hiring aggressively and aims to have 200+ staff by end of 2020.
Neerav hails from a family of furniture-makers in Jodhpur, and thus he had a fair idea about the furniture market. One thought – which was the absence of an alternative to buying expensive furniture for short term had struck Neerav and had not left him until he finally established, CityFurnish. He along with his team has conducted, 200+ interviews to validate the idea. Receiving positive response, CityFurnish took the shape of reality.
When we started, almost 99 percent of people in India bought furniture. Renting and subscription was a very niche category because it was looked down upon as a compromise on either product or service. We were trying to change that perception and influence user behavior. We did not want our customers to feel inferior for renting furniture- said CityFurnish founderNeerav Jain
Neerav wanted to explore the rental space that had picked up in India. Mainly, with the increasing salaried young adults living away from their hometowns and moving houses regularly. For such individuals who are constantly on the move, owning the necessary furniture like beds, sofas, tables not only makes a dent in their bank account but also makes city-hopping harder. Hence, to encash upon such population of the community, Neerav worked upon creating a platform for rented furniture.
When we started, we were more focused on acquiring customers. Now, we want to retain more. So, we are offering a 30-40 percent price benefit to renewing customers. We have also launched a free relocation service for customers who are moving cities in the middle of their subscriptions.
CityFurnish started with just 50 rentals (or subscriptions) in Gurugram. Since then, the startup has grown to about 12,000+ live subscriptions in three years, with a presence in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad / Noida and Hyderabad.. It has also set up 8 fulfillment centers in 7 cities.CityFurnish offers furniture for a minimum rental tenure of 3 months. As the tenure increase, the rental per month reduces, to make it affordable for user in long run.
CityFurnish – Name, Tagline and Logo
The name CityFurnish intends to highlight the company’s prime target audience along with the core service they are providing. It also stands for the commitment of the team at CityFurnish to furnish any city for their users – hassle free and affordably.
‘ Renting Sets You Free’ is the tagline of CityFurnish.
CityFurnish Logo
CityFurnish – Business Model and Revenue Model
The CityFurnish Business Model underwent a slight change to increase customer retention. Initially, CityFurnish followed hotel booking model. This model included asking people for a start date and an end date for renting. As a result, most of the users subscribed for a short period. Now, they have moved to a Netflix-style subscription model, and that has helped them increase customer retention from 35 percent to more than 52 percent.
CityFurnish has packages suiting wide sections of the community ranging from students, family to corporate setup. These packages are priced on the basis of monthly subscriptions. The basic packagestarts atINR. 900/monthand goes up to INR 4500/month.
The unique feature about CityFurnish that sets it apart from its competitors is their end-to end services. Besides designing and manufacturing its own premium furniture, CityFurnish, unlike many of its peers also controls the end-to-end value chain from product sourcing to fulfillment and delivery. It even services installation and maintenance requests from customers.
“We not only have in-house designers and manufacturers, but our team also provides the ‘wow’ factor for customers. For instance, our delivery boys will roll out the dining mats or tuck in the bedsheets. There is no third party involved, and we control the entire user experience.”
A premium service comes at a premium cost, of course. An average monthly subscription for a 2BHK flat costs about INR 4,000-5,000 on CityFurnish. However, prices fluctuate city-wise due to regional factors.
Home furniture accounts for over 60percent of CityFurnish’s subscriptions. Since recently, its commercial customers have been growing with shared workspaces gaining ground in India. Its current clientele consists of large corporates like Toyota, Indian Oil, and Samsung, as well as local startups
CityFurnish – User Acquisition
For the first 100 customers, CityFurnish used techniques like interview at metros and office hubs, expat meets, broker channel etc. Later on, they have adopted broker tie ups; referral marketing; expat Partnerships; relocation and moving company partnership as strategies to expand their scope and reach among their customers. Besides these strategies, CityFurnish also released coupons regularly to both retain their customers and get new customers.
In India furniture market is pretty big. However, 90% of the buyers prefer offline shopping furniture due to trust deficit about the quality, which is a big challenge for any furniture renting startup. Nevertheless, Neerav’s family legacy in furniture making and his experience in the domain has helped him create sophisticated, elegant and quality furniture and thereby, provide CityFurnish customers a “superior experience”.
At the service end, providing white glove delivery experience involved lot of operations challenges. However, CityFurnish was able to overcome the same by training and organizing workshops for its installation and delivery team.
CityFurnish – Funding and Investors
The CityFurnish funding has seen it raise a total funding of around $5.2 million till date.
CityFurnish raised close to $600,000 from Times Group-owned Brand Capital, and a few undisclosed angels. CityFurnish also received $150,000 from Y-Combinator against 7 percent equity stake. In its latest round of funding, CityFurnish raised $5 million in June 2019.
Here are details of funding received by CityFurnish:
Date
Stage
Amount
Investor
June 2019
Series A
$5m
Paul Buchheit, Soma Capital, Venture Highway, Steve Chen
March 2019
Seed Round
$150K
Y Combinator
July 2016
Seed Round
$600K
Brand Capital
December 2015
Seed Round
–
–
CityFurnish – Advisors and Mentors
CityFurnish by the virtue of its wide scale of operations and gaining popularity has the best of the market as their advisors and mentors. One of the prominent mentor include, Youtube Cofounder – Steve Chan, who is also one of CityFurnish’s investors.
Early in 2019, CityFurnish became one of the four Indian startups to be shortlisted by Y Combinator (the top see accelerator in the US) for a 12-week programme. Under the programme, in exchange of a 7 percent equity stake, CityFurnish gained mentorship, funding, and access to top investors in Silicon Valley.
CityFurnish – Competitors
In the furniture rental market the main competitors of CityFurnish are Furlenco and Rentomojo. Like any domain, it faces little competition from the unorganized sector side, which constitute players like Sab Rent Karo, Rent Macha and FlatFurnish among others.
Nevertheless, the team at CityFurnish is confident about their business having only growth in future. They believe that their unique amalgamation of technology and product which is entirely focused on fulfilling customer need, is what sets them apart. Since the startup manufactures and designs their furniture at their own facility in Jodhpur, it provides them tremendous advantage over their competitors. By having control over the quality and cost of their products, the rental startup is able to manage inventory at more than 95 per cent efficiency than its major competitors and at the same time enable a faster collection of their payments.
With more sticky customers, revenues are looking up as well. CityFurnish claims that it has hit an ARR of $3 million and its revenues are increasing 100 percent year-on-year. Subscribers, meanwhile, are growing 20 percent month-on-month with a 3 percent churn (those who drop out).
CityFurnish has set a target of 70,000+ subscribers by 2021, with an ARR of $8 million. The company has achieved profitabilityand plans to double it’s turnover by end of 2020.
As far as product range is concerned, the startup is planning to expand towards kids’ furniture. At present, their product categories include home and office furniture, consumer durable and appliances, electronics, and fitness equipment. It will launch kids’ furniture shortly as it sees it as a prospective high-growth vertical.
“We see it as a perfect subscription category because kids tend to outgrow furniture every 1-2 years. Hence, it makes more sense to rent than to buy. We’re trying to bring depth and variety to it.”
For expansion along these lines, the startup aims to focus on the population of age group 24-38. CityFurnish plans to be the first firm in renting of furniture from India to start operation across the Globe.
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs
Who founded CityFurnish?
Neerav Jain and Saurabh Gupta are the foundersof CityFurnish.
What can you rent on CityFurnish?
You can rent anything from home furniture to appliances to office furniture and finess equipment on Cityfurnish.
Is CityFurnish a subscription based model?
Yes, CityFurnish currently follows a subscription-based model.