This holiday season, Bangalore-based Furlenco, India’s first online furniture rental company has taken innovation in multi-utility furniture to another level, to perfectly cater to the preferences of its young, ambitious and aspirational consumer base.
It has recently introduced a first-of-its-kind product, The Pod for under-furnished Indian homes of the urban youth. The outrageous new 4×6 ft. queen-size bed sized product by Furlenco features all the necessary elements that a 20-something living away from home would need. It comes attached with a subwoofer, TV, lamp and power outlets. The launch was a part of Furlenco’s recent round of funding worth $30 million that was to be leveraged for curating and designing new products according to customer behavior. Customers can pre-book the furniture piece from the online platform and enjoy free doorstep delivery and installation as per the availability of the product at a monthly rent of just INR 2999 per month.
Inspired by the changing preferences of the globally connected millennial’s who think that the idea of ownership is impractical, The Pod has been created for the Generation Y consumer who migrates to new cities for work, ends up opting for compact accommodation as per his/her budget and yet refuses to compromise on necessities and entertainment needs. The all-in-one Pod is spacious enough for two people to sleep comfortably on. Its added features like a 32-inch Panasonic LED TV, a 10 watt 2.1 surround sound speaker system with a subwoofer and support for your favorite gaming console are perfect for hosting a small get together at home with close friends. Meanwhile, for reading enthusiasts, the attached bookshelf, and the adjustable LED reading lamp are perfect companions. And to control all these features, from the reading lamp to the channels on the TV; from volume levels on the speaker system, to powering on or off The POD, there is the Master Control Unit which makes all of it possible just with the touch of a button.
Commenting on the new product launch, Ajith Mohan Karimpana, Founder and CEO of Furlenco said, “A majority of millennial’s residing in the cities do not have the luxury of huge living spaces. They usually end up living in under-furnished houses with bare minimum essentials like a mattress or a sofa-cum-bed. They would rather spend their money on buying the latest gadget or travelling than buying furniture. We designed The Pod after conducting an elaborate survey on how much time this particular category of people spent at home and what they did at home. This multi-functional bed is a place to work, sleep and play. The Pod’s smart spacing and versatile features is a perfect companion for our target market. We will further leverage our recently raised funds to personalize The Pod for the future, maybe in terms of customizing the fabric or introducing different colored variants.”
Furlenco recently raised a whopping $30 million (INR 200 crore) in what might be the largest Series B funding round till date in the online furniture industry. The investment was a mixture of equity and various forms of debt funding, wherein Furlenco had managed to score one of the largest debt finances from a series of banks, NBFCs, HNIs and family offices. Being the world’s only furniture rental company, which designs and manufactures its own furniture with the help of its in-house designers, the startup has redefined and disrupted the Indian market with its rental model for the urban Indian.
