Homelane records Rs 748 revenue in FY25 but falls short of projections

Home interior design firm HomeLane acquired DesignCafe last year in a share-swap deal. The merged entity was projected to achieve a topline of around Rs 1,000 crore and turn EBITDA profitable in FY25. However, the projections fell short, as the Peak XV-backed company closed the fiscal with Rs 747.8 crore in revenue and a loss of Rs 111 crore.

HomeLane’s revenue from operations grew by 22% year-on-year to Rs 747.8 crore in FY25 from Rs 613.6 crore in FY24, its consolidated financial statement filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows.

HomeLane offers end-to-end home interior solutions, combining design, contract manufacturing, and installation. These services remained the company’s only source of revenue during the last fiscal year.

The firm also made an additional Rs 7.86 crore from interest on deposits which took its total revenue to Rs 755.65 crore in the last fiscal year.

On the expenditure side, the cost of materials continued to be the largest cost category, accounting for 37% of total expenses at Rs 320 crore in FY25. This cost increased by 11% year-on-year from the previous fiscal year. Employee benefit expenses rose 28% to Rs 239 crore, while advertising and marketing costs remained flat at Rs 84 crore.

Expenditure on installation and allied costs, contract manufacturing charges, legal and professional fees, travel expenses, and other overheads drove the company’s total expenses to Rs 867 crore in FY25.

Tighter control over advertising, marketing, and material costs helped the company cut its losses by over 8% YoY to Rs 111.38 crore in FY25.

On a unit basis, HomeLane spent Rs 1.16 to earn a rupee in FY25. Its EBITDA margin improved to Rs -11% while EBITDA (loss) stood at Rs 82.6 crore. As of March 2025, the firm has a total current assets of Rs 240.92 crore with cash and bank balances of Rs 82.65 crore.

According to startup data intelligence platform TheKredible, HomeLane has raised a total of $166.45 million to date, which includes a $27 million round secured from existing investors of both HomeLane and DesignCafe, along with new participation from Hero Enterprise.

With the services equivalent of Urban Company for the home interiors space, HomeLane and its peers seem to have missed out on the pandemic kind of event that gave such a boost to Urban Company.  Business as usual is simply not opening up the kind of growth or opportunities for these firms,  and they have failed to dent the larger unorganised market. While venturing into products was the way out for Urban Company and some in the interiors space too, we have to wonder if HomeLane has considered that option, as it will require far bigger changes internally without the buffer of enough funding runway left. Cracking large deals with builders doesn’t offer the margins, and doing individual homes has proven to be way more complicated than most thought. A clear issue has been the failure to generate the sort of positive word of mouth that would move people to consider their services by the interior design firm. Like authorised car dealerships, people seem to consider them only when the house is new and the afterglow of fresh purchase remains. Older house owners seem to be shying away if given an option, and that is indeed a massive issue.