Bengaluru-based interior designing start-up HomeLane plans to enter six new markets in the next six months and aims to be present in 17 cities by the end of the calendar year 2020.
At present, the five-year-old firm claims to have furnished more than 6,000 homes across India’s seven major cities, including Delhi NRC, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
“The next phase of our growth will come from tier-II and tier-III cities. Markets such as Lucknow, Jaipur and Coimbatore have huge appetite for the services we offer,” said Tanuj Choudhry, chief business officer, HomeLane.
According to him, the company has plans to enter the international market before going public. “We have plans to become a listed entity in the next 3-4 years. We are evaluating our options. By the end of September quarter, we expect our EBITDA to break even, which would be a big achievement for us,” Choudhry said.
The start-up helps property owners furnish and install fixtures in houses. It has over a dozen experience centres in major cities for consumers to touch and see materials and furniture. HomeLane claims to give a transparent cost and promises installation within 45 days (or they pay your rent).
Besides expanding its reach, the company is working to expand its services and target audience.“In recent times, we are seeing that consumers are not willing to spend lavishly on real estate. As demand for affordable housing is going up and up, we would like to cater homes that fall in the price bracket of Rs30 lakh-Rs50 lakh. This segment accounts for the 30 per cent of houses sold in the country,” he said.
At present, HomeLane’s target group is homebuyers whose property is valued between Rs50 lakh and Rs3 crore. The other two big plans for the firm is to enter into the house renovation business, whose market size is much bigger than that of interior designing and increase spending on technology.
“The market size of home renovation is currently pegged at $12 billion as against the market size interior designing, which stands at $7-8 billions. It will be a very big market for us to tap,” Choudhry said.
Funding wise, HomeLane had announced raising $30 million in Series D financing round last year in December. The round was led by Evolvence India Fund, Pidilite Group and FJ Labs. Existing investors Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital and JSW Ventures also participated in the round.