Samsung VC arm and Mitsui Sumitomo invest in Rentomojo

Online furniture and consumer durable leasing platform Rentomojo is raising Rs 27.7 crore as a part of Series C funding round led by Samsung’s venture capital arm Samsung Venture Investments Corporation (SVIC). 

According to RoC filings with MCA, Rentomojo has passed special resolutions to increase its authorised share capital from 50 lakhs to Rs 75 lakhs and to further issue 2,980 Series C CCPS along with 10 equity shares.

SVIC will be issued 2240 Series C CCPS and 10 equity shares for an investment of around Rs 20.88 crore and will be joined by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital (MSIVC) who will be pouring in Rs 6.86 crore for the allotment of 740 Series C CCPS. 

MSIVC is the venture investment ancillary of Japanese insurance giant Mitsui Sumitomo.

This investment is part of SVIC’s plan of making around 100 investments in India within the next 3-5 years. The VC arm of the mobile manufacturer has around $ 2.2 billion in assets under management and it invested nearly $8.5 million in Indian startups such as OSLabs (Indus OS), Silvan Innovation Labs and Gnani.ai.

All of these investments have had a strong strategic intent behind them.

The investment in Indus OS allowed Samsung to integrate Indus OS’s app store -App Bazaar with Galaxy App Store. App Bazaar has over 400,000 apps available for downloads across 12 regional languages.

Similarly, Silvan Innovation Labs develops Internet Of Things(IoT) solutions for homes and enterprises was done with an intent to boost Samsung's efforts to have all its products IoT ready by 2020.

Notably, the consumer durable space has seen a definite shift in India. The millennials are preferring to rent/lease the appliances and furniture instead of getting stuck with a costly one-time purchase.

The flexibility of renting the furniture and essential home appliances appeal to the younger mass of the population as they move for work and studies from one city to another frequently.

The investment in Rentomojo would be an opportunity for the South Korean electronics giant to ramp up its stake in consumer electronics leasing.

An alliance with Samsung would also benefit Rentomojo as the Bengaluru based company is planning to expand to more cities in India and strong inventory support from the consumer electronics company would come in handy.

Rentomojo had previously raised Rs 77 crore in the first tranche in the ongoing series C round which was co-led by Chiratae Ventures and Accel Partners. Additionally, the furniture renting company additionally raised Rs 15 crore in debt capital earlier this year.