
Home interiors and renovation startup, Livspace, is the fifth unicorn of 2022 with a $180 million fundraise in a Series F round led by KKR, a global investment firm. The Series F round also witnessed participation from existing investors such as Ingka Group Investments (holding company of IKEA), Jungle Ventures, Venturi Partners, and Peugeot Investments, among others.
Anuj Srivastava, co-founder and CEO of Livspace, told Business Today in an exclusive interaction that the company’s valuation has more than doubled during the current fundraise to over $1 billion and that the cumulative fundraise by the startup now stands at $450 million from the leading global investors.
The company is focussed on an omnichannel approach with a sizeable online, offline presence, especially to penetrate the highly untapped Tier 2 towns of India and beyond.
“Our offline stores have received a phenomenal response in every market we have forayed into and this gives us utmost optimism. Experience Centres (ECs) and small format stores have emerged as key consumer touchpoints, helping Livspace solve for access in the non-metros. We aim to further strengthen our presence in the country with over 150 new stores in both metros and non-metros in the next 18 months,” Livspace CEO told BT.
The company is also eyeing profitability by 2023 on the back of heightened growth since the onset of the pandemic gave shape to wfh/remote work model.
“Since our inception in 2015, Livspace has taken the pole position in the home interiors and renovation segment with a 65 per cent market share in 2021. We grew 2X in the last 5 months. In fact, we witnessed over 400 per cent growth in the past 24 months. We will be closing new orders worth $350-400mn by March quarter and we are looking at $700 million by 2023. I am happy to share that our India operations broke even in March 2021 and we are looking at a company-wide profitability in the next 12-18 months,” Srivastava said.
He added that the company is seeing an uptick in the market and the next 5 years look extremely promising.
“We are also witnessing a shift in demand towards organised, digital brands as people are now more open about having a conversation on designing or redesigning homes online.” Aligned with this, our business is growing exponentially in both India and Singapore and we aim to replicate our playbook, launch new solutions and accelerate our launches across new markets in APAC, Mena and Australia,” Livspace CEO said.
“We are pleased to invest in Livspace, a unique, tech-enabled business with terrific growth potential. Our investment in Livspace extends KKR’s long-term commitment to Indian consumers made through our growth technology strategy in India. Anuj and Ramakant have been leaders in evolving the home renovation industry," said Gaurav Trehan, Partner and CEO of KKR India.