Leading Indian furniture and home products marketplace, Pepperfry.com raised $100 million in a fresh round of funding and has drawn up plans for aggressive growth.
This is the company’s fourth round of funding and it had earlier raised $28 million.
The latest funding is the largest amount raised by a sector focused e-commerce player in India and was led by Goldman Sachs and Zodius Technology Fund with existing investors Bertelsmann India Investment and Norwest Venture Partners also participating.
“Through this most recent partnership with Pepperfry.com, we intend to leverage our global expertise in the sector to help create a large, differentiated leader in India’s rapidly growing e-Commerce industry,” Ankur Sahu, Co-Head of Private Equity, Goldman Sachs in Asia said.
India’s home products and furniture market is estimated at $25 billion.
“The funds will be used to expand our overall reach and to increase customer activity around furniture buying,” said Ashish Shah, COO and co-founder, Pepperfry.com.
Pepperfry.com reaches customers in more than 350 towns and cities and will use the funds to expand to expand reach to 550 towns and cities. It wants to increase its logistics footprint in Tier-III and Tier-IV cities by doubling its fleet of delivery vehicles from the current 200 vehicles by year-end. Furniture accounts for 75 per cent of its business and Pepperfry specializes in solid wood furniture. “More than 90 per cent of furniture market is unorganised and we want to make it more affordable. We offer products in more durable wood like Sheesham (Indian rosewood), rubberwood and mango wood, making more than 20,000 pieces of wood furniture per month.”
Also on the anvil are expansion of distribution centres from the current 11 to 16 by September including in Kanpur, Visakhapatnam, Jaipur, Goa and Chandigarh. Also, it plans to expand the carpenter and assembly service network. “We employ 265 carpenters and this should go to 400 by year-end,” Mr. Shah said. Pepperfry seeks to quadruple its technology and engineering team from the current 70 to around 300 soon with a focus on leveraging augmented reality on mobile to enrich the buying experience.
