Dekoruma announces series C1 funding worth of $15 million or equivalent to 216.8 billion Rupiah. Nexter Ventures by SCG Cement-Building Materials, KTB Network, and several previous stage investors are participated in this round, including Global Digital Niaga (Blibli), OCBC NISP Ventura, and Foundational. The additional capital will be used for the expansion of the Experience Center outside Jakarta and product/service development.
“The current focus is to grow our business and achieve positive EBITDA by the end of 2022. Furthermore, we will prepare for an IPO around the end of 2023,” Dimas said.
Previously, the company announced a pre-series C round in May 2020 with the participation of InterVest Star SEA Growth Fund 1, Foundational, OCBC NISP Ventura, and Skystar Ventures. Participated also investors from the previous round.
Dekoruma has received series A funding from Skystar Capital, Beenext, and Convergence Ventures in 2016. Moreover, in 2018, they secured a million dollar series B round led by Global Digital Niaga (Blibli) and AddVentures.
O2O Concept
Debuted in 2016, Dekoruma was originally an online marketplace platform for furniture products. Along with its development, they are now trying to connect consumers with furniture traders, interior designers, contractors, to property developers.
In 2019, they started expanding its business model with an online to offline (O2O) approach. With the distribution of Experience Centers in various cities, the company said to manage 2x productivity per square meter, including reducing acquisition costs and increasing online purchases in related cities.
“The products and ecosystem we have built have eliminated the inefficiencies that blocked the industry. This means more affordable products and highly transparent services for our customers and partners. We will improve by expanding our business beyond Jakarta and adding more partners and property developers,” Dekoruma’s Co-founder & CEO, Dimas Harry Priawan said.
From the current statistics, Dekoruma has served more than 1 million customers, with more than 5 thousand designer and contractor partners covering tier-1 and tier 2 cities. It is also claimed that over the last 18 months revenue has increased by 3x. The next target will be to expand to 8 new cities within 2 years.
The latest release
On the Dekoruma platform, users are currently provided with proptech services in the form of listing property products (apartments/houses). Dimas said, the MVP for this product has been started since the end of 2019. Apart from being a request for property developer partners, this feature is also based on several problems that according to them are still often encountered in the local property market, the imbalance quality of property agents and the less transparent home buying process.
“Unlike markets in other countries such as America and Singapore, there is no specific regulation regarding Property Agents. Everyone can become a property agent, but not necessarily they know about details such as contracts, legalities, and processes. In here, all of our agents will go through strict training and control processes, assisted by our application that has been running for almost 2 years to provide good and consistent service,” he said.
In addition, Dekoruma also launched NOMA, an interior design management system. Currently, the application has been used by 5 thousand users from interior designers and architects in their network. “NOMA is like The Sims, where users can design a room using a catalog of goods from the Dekoruma marketplace platform. It can provide price transparency and availability of goods,” Dimas explained.
This platform also bridges business processes when there are social restrictions due to the pandemic. Customers can discuss with designers virtually via NOMA. The only physical meeting before the construction process is when customers visit the Dekoruma Experience Center to feel, and touch the various materials and products firsthand.
Future plans
According to the report, the global furniture products market size has reached $64.08 billion in 2021 and is projected to grow to 81.45 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 9.09%. Studies in the United States, 40% of growth has been contributed from the online segment. It is certainly a wide potential for all countries, including Indonesia.
Regarding market share, Dekoruma specifically targets the middle-class with an age ranging from 26 to 38 years. Without mentioning further details, the furniture products that have experienced a rapid increase are sofa-beds and home offices. The demand for kitchen sets has also been observed to increase sharply on the platform.
The large market potential and solid business model have strengthened the company to prepare for the next strategic step. Regarding the IPO, Dimas said, “We have a healthy, growing business and provide value creation for Indonesia’s home living ecosystem. The IPO can provide us with a stronger foundation for us to become a bigger and better company.”
There is not much information yet to share about the IPO, including its location whether on local exchanges or the United States. Dimas said that his team is currently conducting a study for further consideration.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian