Home Interior Design E-Platform Design Cafe Raises $28 Mn Funding from WestBridge and Fireside

Design Cafe, a Bengaluru based online home interior design platform, announced that WestBridge Capital will invest up to Rs 200 cr in a series B round of funding with participation by existing investor Fireside Ventures.
Bangalore based, boutique Investment Bank Sprout Capital Advisors LLP was the exclusive financial advisor on the transaction.
In July last year, the startup had raised undisclosed amount from Fireside in its second round of funding.
Founded in 2015 by Gita Ramanan and Shezaan Bhojani, Design Cafe allows home owners to access best in the country designers which they would otherwise not have access to and allows them to create a designer home in a budget. It is the first of its kind modular home company where the entire home is almost factory made and comes with a
warranty.

Shezaan Bhojani & Gita Ramanan, Co-Founders of Design Cafe

Built on a strong technology backend, the company offers customized interior solutions & personalized designs to consumers.
Design Cafe was set up to address a large personalization and execution gap that existed in the mid-segment (i.e. homes of 1,000-2,000 sq ft.) home interior market. The company also allows Consumers to visualize their home in virtual reality before execution. The company proposes to use the additional capital to expand operations in 6 other cities including Mumbai, NCR and Hyderabad.
The startup is backed by Mr. Kanwaljit Singh (Ex MD. of Helion Ventures), The Salarpuria group through Apurva
Salarpuria and other HNI’s.
Commenting on the funding, Sandeep Singhal, Managing Partner, Westbridge Capital, said, “We have been impressed with Design Cafe’s rapid scaling up and initial success. Their high customer satisfaction rate is an excellent achievement and is a testimony to the company’s deep domain expertise in this sector, hard work and good business judgment. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with Design Cafe in their journey of taking the business to even greater heights and building a marquee brand in home design services and products.”
Kanwaljit Singh, Managing Partner of Fireside Ventures said “DesignCafe operates in a large white space and have built a solution that caters to a large target audience. Gita and Shezaan come with significant design experience which helps them understand the consumer need better. We have backed the company since its early days and are excited to partner with them to build a large home interior services Brand”
Speaking on the occasion, Shezaan Bhojani, Co-founder, Design Café said, “We are very pleased to have Westbridge, one of the leading PE investors in India, join the Design Cafe team. We are also excited to strengthen our already close relationship with existing investor Fireside Ventures, who is also participating in this round. These investors share our long-term mindset and align with our values and we are thrilled to have them join us in our journey to script the next chapter of Design Café.”
Founded by KP Balaraj, Sumir Chadha, SK Jain and Sandeep Singhal, WestBridge Capital is a highly experienced investment firm, managing over $2 billion of capital, which focuses on investments in India. The PE firm invests through both direct secondary market purchases and negotiated deals. A typical investment ranges from $10 million to $80 million. The team is one of the most recognized in the industry and has a combined 50+ years of experience in investing in Indian companies.
Fireside is a focused early-stage investment platform for consumer brands. Anchored by a slew of marquee investors, including Premji Invest, Westbridge Capital, Mariwala Family Office, Unilever Ventures, Emami Ltd., RP-Sanjiv Goenka Family Office, Sunil Munjal’s Hero Enterprise Investment Office and ITC Ltd., Fireside manages a corpus of Rs 3.4 Bn to be invested in exciting consumer brand startups in multiple rounds, from Seed to Series A funding.
Source: IndianWeb2
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