Rentickle.com, an online platform that allows users to rent lifestyle products including home appliances, furniture and cameras on a monthly subscription model, has raised around $4 million (Rs 25 crore) in a fresh round of funding.
The company raised the amount in a combination of equity and debt, it said in a statement.
The equity portion of the investment was led by Ajay Relan, founder and chairman, CX Partners and ThinKuvate, a Singapore-based venture capital firm, with participation from existing investors. DMI Finance Pvt. Ltd, a Delhi-based non-banking financial company, provided the debt capital.
“The online rental space has tremendous growth potential, given the change in demographics and increasing acceptance of the shared economy concept especially amongst generation next. However, timely recoveries are extremely crucial for the success of startups following this model,†Relan said.
The startup will use the funds to expand its services to more cities besides enriching its product category, it said.
Rentickle was founded by Amit Sodhi and Vineet Chawla in 2015. Sodhi’s previous venture homeobuy.com, a homeopathy medicines platform, was acquired by online drug marketplace 1mg.com in 2015. He was previously director of education business at HT Media Ltd. A former Future Group executive, Chawla in his most recent role, was CEO of The Hong Kong Winalite Group.
Owned and operated by Ava Lifestyle Products & Services Pvt. Ltd, Rentickle offers furniture including beds, bookshelves and sofa sets as well as home appliance products like refrigerator, TV and washing machine.
The startup claims to have around 10,000 subscribers across the four cities it operates—Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon and Hyderabad.
Furniture renting has been one of the key vertical ecommerce businesses that have attracted significant venture capital investment over the years in India.
Chennai-based two-wheeler manufacturer TVS Motor Company Ltd recently invested Rs 1.5 crore in RentOnGo, an online marketplace for renting bikes, electronics and appliances. In December 2015, RentOnGo raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Snapdeal’s former chief product officer Anand Chandrasekaran, GSF India founder Rajesh Sawhney, Kalpana Tatavarti (partner, Interweave Consulting), Shivanandan Pare (head of e-commerce, Madurai Lifestyle & Fashion) and other angel investors.
In February this year, VCCircle reported that Bengaluru-based GrabOnRent Internet Pvt. Ltd, which runs product rental marketplace GrabOnRent, was close to raising $3 million (Rs 19.5 crore) in its Series A funding, after raising a pre-Series A round in June last year from IvyCap Ventures and Unicorn India Ventures.
Online rental marketplace for furniture, home appliances and bikes RentoMojo raised $10 million (Rs 64.3 crore) in a Series B round of funding led by Bain Capital Ventures and Renaud Laplanche, a French-American entrepreneur, in July this year.
Bengaluru-based Furlenco, one of the largest furniture rental companies in India, had raised $30 million in October last year in its Series B round of funding. It secured $15 million of equity capital from its existing investor Lightbox Ventures along with Axis Capital Partners, a Hong Kong-based venture capital fund while $15 million was raised as debt.
Goldman Sachs-backed furniture, home decor and appliances marketplace Pepperfry has recently announced its entry into the furniture rental space in a couple of markets including Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Ahmedabad.