Furniture on rent: Furlenco steps in to change the market mentality

Furniture industry is getting disrupted by the new age furniture rental companies, Furlenco is Netflix of the Indian furniture—but things are changing, changing fast thanks to urbanisation which is happening at a rapid pace in India. With the urbanisation, the number of people migrating from one city to another has also gone up. For example, Mumbai itself is estimated to have a floating population of nearly one million. For such people owning furniture on permanent basis doesn't make any sense and taking furniture on rent is most pragmatic option.

Further, the practice of owning furniture lifelong is fast changing, especially, among the younger generation who love to change their furniture, say once in three years. For them buying furniture doesn't make much sense as they have to dispose-off older furniture at a substantial loss. For them renting furniture is a better option.

Furlenco, funded by Lightbox Ventures, was set up with an initial capital of Rs 50 lakh from the promoter and his friends and family. Later on, Crowd-source funds through various online deal making platforms like LetsVenture, but later went on to raise debt funds from CapitalFloat in smaller amounts.

Few years ago, people used to reach out to their local carpenters when it came to adding new furniture to one's space. But now there has been an increase in the number of online furniture portals and the local furniture retailers will soon take a back seat. Looking at the standalone stores, besides local stores, Evok, Home Stop and HomeTown, there hardly are any furniture space. When desirability and availability comes into the picture, these furniture spaces lack the 'satisfactory' factor.

According to a report which came out last year, the Indian e-tailing company is pegged to become a USD 100 billion market from current USD 10 billion in the next 5 years.

Rental furniture companies, like Furlenco designs and curates its own furniture. They have their in-house designers and 3 warehouses that take care of all the furniture making and creation. With 4 vendors across India, it basically is not taking away their normal/ daily business.

Furlenco's market expectation from 2016:

• 2016 market expectation- 25000+ homes across 4 cities.
• Number of transactions crossed in the year 2015- 5000+.
• Furlenco's presence in the number of houses across Bangalore & Mumbai- 4000+ homes.