STARTUP... Furlenco - Uber My Bed
This furniture rental
startup claims to have furnished more than 20,000 homes in the past two years.
It has an ambitious goal to scale ten-fold by 2020, entering two lakh homes.
Driving this optimism is what founder Ajith Mohan Karimpan, 38, describes as
“power of the shared economy. It solves the problem of need today.“
Earlier, Karimpan says,
furniture was owned rather than rented as there was no option. Now, bachelors, who
average 28 years of age and constitute 60% of Furlenco's customers, have the
choice of renting furniture via apps. Even newly-married couples, with a joint
income of `10 lakh a year, opt to rent furniture, which forms 80% of Furlenco's
business. Appliances account for the rest.
Furlenco contends that
paying for two large pizzas is dearer than the cost of renting a couch for a
month. A queen sized bed works out to `1,000 a month and a study table with
chair and side unit can be rented for `1,100.
The five-year-old Furlenco
is present in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Pune, having raised a total of $36
million (equity and debt) from Lightbox Ventures, banks, NBFCS and HNIs. The
money will go into expanding to tier I, II cities.
Furlenco buys solid wood
furniture from 40 vendors. On an average, users pay `3,000 per month for
products rented out and the average duration of lease is 20 months. When
returned to the warehouse, Furlenco's 250-strong workforce ensures furniture is
as good as new, ready to be shipped to another rental address.
ET Jul 27 2017
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