Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan invests in furniture rental startup Furlenco

Online furniture rental startup Furlenco has raised $1.2 million in a debt funding round from Bollywood perfectionist Aamir Khan and four others individuals. Unlike most of the funding rounds led by celebrities, Khan won’t be a brand ambassador for the Bengaluru-based company.

Furlenco designs the furniture it offers for rent on its platform. The company had secured over $30 million in a mix of equity and debt funding from Lightbox Ventures, Hong Kong-based venture capital fund Axis Capital, four other HNIs, along with unnamed NBFCs.

The funding round was first reported by VCCircle.

Until June this year, the rental company had claimed to furnish more than 20,000 homes. It primarily caters to premium customers with an annual household income of Rs 10 lakh.

Lightbox Ventures Management had invested $6 million in Furlenco in March 2015. The platform claims to clock an average ticket size of Rs 3,000 and is looking to break even by March 2018.

Earlier this month, Delhi-based Rentickle, the lifestyle rental startup had raised $4 million in a fresh round of equity and debt funding led by Ajay Relan, chairman of VC firm CX Partners, and ThinKuvate, a Singapore-based VC firm.

A couple of months ago, Mumbai-based Pepperfry had entered furniture rental space as it plans to strengthen volumes and increase its clientele base.

A quick look at online furniture rental space

At Present, technology led rental space is in a very nascent stage, however, with rising urbanisation and frequent movements of working class from one city to another, the scope of online rental platforms bound to get up.

Also read: Growing from 1,000 to 25,000 users in two years: RentoMojo story

While over 90 per cent of furniture sector in India is unorganized, merely one percent of which is online.

According to a Redseer Consulting report, the home furniture industry is a $25 billion market altogether, of which $250 million is online. However, by 2020, the home furniture industry is supposed to be worth $35 billion on the whole, with $700 million of it being online.

On the competition front, Furlenco rubs shoulder with Bengaluru-based RentoMojo, Pepperfry, Rentickle amongst others.