BENGALURU : Geetansh Bamania was moving cities more often than he liked by the time he started his career. Shifting cities was a challenge in terms of finding a new home and figuring out commutes. And for a young adult like Geetansh, being able to rent furniture for his home through a deal with the local retailer came as a welcome boon. Stemming from his own experience, RentoMojo, a fintech startup which offers the unique, RMI or rental monthly installment option for movable assets emerged.
Launched four years ago, Geetansh who was a serial entrepreneur started small. “We started in Powai, Mumbai, and used social media to our benefit instead of spending too much on customer acquisition. We would keep track of the groups on Facebook where homes and retail trade happened and inserted ourselves and our concept there,” he says. The concept of RMI caught the attention of the younger demographic who found it more convenient to spend in installments than shelling out money in one go.
“More than just a rental service, RentoMojo is actually a subscription service. We also offer the option of owning the product after a specific period of the lease. Of course, renting it until they need it is also an option. As we provide the convenience of monthly installment with an option of owning what they rent, it caught on soon enough,” says Geetansh.
Once they had zeroed in on the concept, the initial investment that went into the startup was about `20 lakh. RentoMojo also has raised $17 million in a pre-series funding in both capital and equity. “Our inventory is completely handled and produced by our partners,” he says. Currently headquartered in Bengaluru, RentoMojo operates in New Delhi, NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai.
Rentomojo currently has about 50,000 subscribers and Geetansh has set his goal at a million subscribers. But that isn’t his first priority. “Improving our customer-base is certainly on the to-do list but we give the highest priority to making sure the existing customers are satisfied with our service. We want to keep building on how we can better our service such that it provides our customers with the highest convenience,” says the entrepreneur.
Geetansh, who has also worked with Flipkart and Pepperfry, thinks that starting early gave him the edge over the rest. “I spent a few months in the conglomerates. But my two unsuccessful startups before RentoMojo helped me learn through the mistakes. I also believe that starting early in life gave me the time to make mistakes and learn from them,” says Geetansh signing off.
In a nutshell
Geetansh Bamania started RentoMojo in 2014
His initial investment was around `20 lakh for the RMi concept startup
He later raised $17 million in a pre-series funding
RentoMojo now operates in seven cities and has 50,000 subscribers.