Millennials today only believe in sharing rather than owning. Be it workspaces, cabs, or even furniture. As we move forward through the years, we see more and more modernization of the things that were done quite traditionally by older generations. To bring the air of contemporary change in the renting furniture space, IIT-Madras graduates, Geetansh Bamania along with co-founder Ajay Nain founded RentoMojo in 2014.
RentoMojo - Company Highlights
| Company Name | RentoMojo |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | Bangalore, India |
| Sector | Ecommerce, Rental |
| Founder | Achal Mittal, Ajay Nain, Gautam Adukia, Geetansh Bamania |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Website | rentomojo.com |
RentoMojo - Latest News
RentoMojo - About and how it works
RentoMojo - Target Market Size
RentoMojo - Founders and Team
RentoMojo - How did it start?
RentoMojo - Business Model and Revenue Model
RentoMojo - Startup Launch
RentoMojo - Startup Challenges
RentoMojo - Competitors
RentoMojo - Funding and Investors
RentoMojo - Growth
Check out this List of Top Startups in Bangalore | Best Bangalore Startups
RentoMojo - Latest News
Recently, Bamania talking about the impact of Covid-19 told that the company did see a dip as people were not sure about when deliveries would be made during the lockdown. However, the volumes have now started ramping up.
Founder of Rentomojo Geetansh Bamania added, “Given there is an organic demand for rental as a category as we are coming out of the lockdown, this is an inflection point for the rental industry”.
Bengaluru-based furniture rental platform RentoMojo is now adding yet another top-up for its ongoing Series C funding round.
Online furniture and appliances rental platform, RentoMojo has raised around Rs 22.43 crore in June 2020, from its existing investors, Shri Investment; Pratithi Investment Trust, and Gautam Dalmia. The company has allotted 2594 Series C2 CCPS at Rs 86,471.17 per share to these investors to rake in Rs 22.43 crore.
Online rental marketplace Rentomojo has touched a valuation of nearly $100 million after raising fresh funding from venture capital investors. The company has said that to meet its growth objectives and to strengthen its financial position, it is contemplating the generation of long-term resources.
Before this round, the company has raised $47.1 million to date from investors like Samsung Ventures, Chiratae Ventures, Accel Partners, BCIP Venture Associates, Bain Capital, and Renaud Laplanche.
RentoMojo - About and how it works
As the name suggests RentoMojo is a consumer leasing company. It is an online rental platform that provides furniture, appliances and electronics (mobiles, laptops) on a monthly rental basis. It is quite the leader in the lifestyle leasing/subscription industry in terms of revenue and number of subscribers. This is essential because of the asset-light financial business model which makes this venture unique and sustainable.
Current verticals of RentoMojo majorly include furniture, appliances, and electronics. These verticals offer various items such as beds, microwaves, television, tables, and water purifiers on rent. Besides all this wide array of items, this platform also gives packages on combined items.
It raises lease-capital from financial institutions for products rented to consumers for long periods, typically up to 18 months. The company currently offers leases for furniture, appliances, bikes, and more. And ideally functions through tie-ups with local suppliers and do not hold any of its inventory.
Also Read: 2020 List of Top Rental Startups in India
RentoMojo - Target Market Size
According to a recent survey and the current economic growth rates, subscription or technology-led rental space is at a very nascent stage. But with rising urbanization and frequent movements of the working class from one city to another, the overall scope of online rental platforms is bound to rise. Over 90% of the furniture sector in India is unorganized and merely 1% of that is online.
According to a Redseer Consulting report, “the home furniture industry is a $25 billion market altogether, of which $250 million is online. However, by 2020, the home furniture industry is supposed to be worth $35 billion on the whole, with $700 million of it being online.”
RentoMojo - Founders and Team
RentoMojo was founded by Geetansh Bamania in November 2014 in India.
- Geetansh Bamania, Founder & CEO - Geetansh has an Engineering degree from IIT Madras. He is a Serial Entrepreneur and has forayed into multiple ventures like community learning start-up (Click2skill) and philanthropic crowdfunding start-up (HopeMonkey). He has also worked with Multinational companies like Flipkart, Pepperfry, and KPMG. He was selected for Forbes 30 under 30 in the year 2015 and was in the top 10 youngest and hottest entrepreneurs voted by Business World.
- Ajay Nain, Co-founder & COO - Ajay is also an engineer from IIT and also happens to be a Lean Six Sigma expert in Supply Chain. Along with being the co-founder of RentoMojo, he has also found Gully Network with the vision of organizing the unorganized retail space.
Also Read: RentLite - Get Stylish Office Furniture on Rent
RentoMojo - How did it start?
All of this started when Rentomojo founder Geetansh was managing products at Flipkart and then went on to head the furniture category at Pepperfry. All this while, he kept moving around the four main cities of India namely Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai. And during this exact time, his brother was in the UK and he rented or leased pretty much everything he needed to sustain a temporary living arrangement. Hence, Geetansh too started thinking on similar lines but renting furniture and appliances was not his first idea.
Geetansh, RentoMojo owner, had initially thought of renting out toys to children, with the reasons being that they are expensive and children only use them for a couple of days before the parents buy them new ones. But because he had a background and relative experience in furniture and appliance, he realized that this would be a more known path to begin his entrepreneurial journey. That’s when he quit Pepperfry and went on to launch RentoMojo in November 2014.
RentoMojo - Business Model and Revenue Model
RentoMojo started as a furniture rental platform but quickly modified its business model to promote itself as a fintech or leasing company, which provides consumers with a viable alternative to traditional EMIs by offering rental options across various product categories.
RentoMojo follows an asset-light business model where it has tied up with strategic vendors and works on a cost-sharing basis with them.
The growth of the rental economy is evident from the financial performance of Rentomojo in FY19. According to regulatory filings, the company has managed to achieve a 3 folds growth in revenue from operations which grew from Rs 35.5 crore in FY18 to Rs 107 crore in FY19.
Relevant read: NestAway - Home Rental Has Now Become Easier!
RentoMojo - Startup Launch
After launching the startup, RentoMojo received its first order in just within a month i.e., December of the same year. Also, within 24 months, RentoMojo grew from catering to 1,000 customers to 25,000 customers. During this time the company claimed to grow on a scale of 40X.
When it comes to sourcing, RentoMojo works with only a few vendors than several. These vendors have been idesntified carefully by the company on a basis like the quality of products and turn around time (TAT). Instead of dealing with large and well-known vendors in the city, the startup ideally relies much more on local vendors.
RentoMojo - Startup Challenges
There is a common insight into the huge disparity in the purchasing power of developed and developing nations. RentoMojo as a venture strives to erode this problem and provide a contemporary and comfortable lifestyle to the younger generation.
Though availing the consumer products through leasing and renting is a fairly great concept because of being cheaper and also effectively convenient and flexible than buying, it is still a foreign and new concept for Indian consumers.
“Effectively reaching out to make them aware and influence our target audience with the appropriate marketing mix at optimum investment is the challenge”, said Geetansh, RentoMojo CEO.
RentoMojo is dodging challenge through effective targeting, putting up relevant and optimized content, spreading awareness hacks and communications to educate the Indian customers about renting and its benefits.
“We face the same challenges as what Airbnb, Uber and lending clubs would have faced in their initial days”, added Geetansh, RentoMojo founder.
Also read: Fabrento - Why Buy When you can Rent Furniture!
RentoMojo - Competitors
In the rental space of the country, RentoMojo faces both direct and indirect competition from competitors like Furlenco, Urban Ladder, and Pepperfry among many other major and minor players in the industry. However, none of these scaled-up companies in the lease and subscription industry have an asset-light model which RentoMojo, as a company operates in and believes, is the only way to scale and crack subscription business globally. This asset-light business model is where most of the inventory is not owned by the company.
“As an asset-light company, we have the flexibility to expand to a new location at the click of a button, increase our number of partners, and expand our capacity. Through outsourcing of asset sharing, we can focus on scaling by investing in R&D”, said Geetansh, owner of RentoMojo.
RentoMojo - Funding and Investors
RentoMojo has raised a total of $47.1M in funding over 12 rounds. Here is a list of all the funding rounds of RentoMojo:
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 2015 | Seed Round | $2 million | IDG Ventures India, Accel |
| July 2016 | Series A | $5 million | IDG Ventures India, Accel |
| November 2016 | Non Equity Assistance | $50K | Google Launchpad Accelerator |
| April 2017 | Venture Round | - | Innoven Capital |
| May 2017 | Debt Financing | - | IntelleGrow |
| July 2017 | Series B | $10 million | Bain Capital Ventures |
| May 2019 | Series C | ₹77 crore | Accel, Chiratae Ventures |
| July 2019 | Series C | ₹1.16 crore | Renaud Laplanche |
| August 2019 | Series C | ₹27.7 crore | Samsung Ventures |
| September 2019 | Secondary Market | $320K | - |
| May 2020 | Series C | ₹24.48 crore | Bain Capital, Renaud Laplanche, Chiratae Ventures |
| June 2020 | Series C | ₹22.43 crore | Shri Investment, Pratithi Investment Trust, Gautam Dalmia |
The company has raised $47.1 million till date from investors like IDG Ventures India, Google Launchpad Accelerator, InnoVen Capital, IntelleGrow, Samsung Ventures, Chiratae Ventures, Accel Partners, BCIP Venture Associates, Bain Capital and Renaud Laplanche.
Online rental marketplace Rentomojo has touched a valuation of nearly $100 million after raising fresh funding from venture capital investors.
Relevant read: SimplyGuest - Find the Best Housing Solutions
RentoMojo - Growth
- Has over and above 25,000 plus subscribers
- Currently RentoMojo has around 2,000 active subscribers on the platform
- Serves more than 100,000 live orders in a month
- Operates in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Noida, and Gurugram.
- Also, the company recently started offering motorcycles and bike rentals.
- RentoMojo has a team of about 50 people with current operations majorly four cities namely Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, and Pune.
Link : https://startuptalky.com/rentomojo-rental-services/
Author :- Rishabh Rathi
June 07, 2020 at 12:50PM
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