What is Urban Ladder? Urban Ladder Review

Basic Situation

UrbanLadder promises that its furniture and home furnishings are high-quality, well-designed, affordable, solidly constructed, and highly trustworthy. The platform plans the manufacturing time of products, including modular kitchens, assembled wardrobes, custom sofas, and other furniture. Brands guarantee that orders will be fulfilled within the specified time. In addition, the platform also provides 3D renderings for home decoration design plans, allowing customers to actively participate in the home design process by providing various ideas, color samples, etc.

Founding

Initially, Urban Ladder was an online home decoration company, and later gradually transformed into a quality home solution platform. Currently, the company has more than 4,000 products in 35 categories, such as wardrobes, sofas, beds, dining tables, storage shelves, etc. The furniture is planned and designed by Urban Ladder's experienced team of designers.

In addition to online business, they are also continuously expanding the offline market and establishing brand experience stores. In addition, Urban Ladder also plans to expand the number of interior designs and enhance user experience.

Founder Introduction

Rajaraman and Harinarayan are both serial entrepreneurs who co-founded Junglee Corp in 1996. They also founded Cambrian Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund in 2000, and Kosmix, a website that organizes the Internet by topic, in 2005. In 2011, Kosmix was acquired by Walmart, and Anand and Venky began to run WalmartLabs until June 2012.

Financing

$5 million in November 2013 and $1 million from Kalaari in August 2012.

In July 2014, Urban Ladder received an investment of US$21 million in its latest round of financing. This round of financing was led by Hong Kong hedge fund Steadview Capital. Other investors included SAIF Partners, Kalaari Capital, etc.

In April 2015, Urban Ladder received US$50 million in financing, led by Sequoia Capital and Hong Kong's TR Capital.

In February 2017, Urban Ladder, an online furniture brand in Bangalore, India, recently raised 10.2 billion rupees (about 15.2 million U.S. dollars) from investors including SAIF Partners, Kalaari Capital, Sequoia India and Steadview Capital. Kalaari and SAIF each invested about 4.5 million U.S. dollars, Steadview invested about 4 million U.S. dollars, and Sequoia invested about 2 million U.S. dollars in this round.

In April 2018, Urban Ladder Home Furnishings recently announced that it raised $12 million in funding from existing investors – Kalaari Capital, Saif Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Steadview Capital.

In September 2018, Urban Ladder, an omnichannel (online & offline) furniture retailer headquartered in Bangalore, India, announced that it had completed a new round of financing of 362.9 million rupees (approximately US$5.06 million), with the investor being the well-known venture capital firm Trifecta Capital.

In November 2019, Urban Ladder, an omnichannel Indian furniture startup, received an injection of approximately 150 million rupees (approximately 2.1 million U.S. dollars) in its latest round of financing after its Series E round. The 150 million rupees of funding was jointly undertaken by three private equity funds: SAIF Partners, Steadview Capital, and Sequoia Capital India.

In November 2020, Indian industrial giant Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) announced that it would acquire a 96% stake in furniture online retail platform Urban Ladder for approximately 1.8 billion rupees (approximately US$24.4 million) to increase its penetration in India's online retail market, while promoting digitalization and new business activities, expanding product categories, and strengthening the connection between retail stores and online product delivery.

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