Online furniture and home appliances rental startup Rentickle.com has just raised a fresh round of funding of $4 million. The major investors in this round are Singapore based venture capital firm ThinKuvate and by Ajay Relan, Chairman of Indian VC firm, CX Partners.
The significance of this funding is that Rentickle.com has chosen a mix of equity and debt funding and the ratio is understood to be 45:55. It is also learnt that the above two venture capitalists have preferred to pick up the equity portion, while the debt funding has been done by DMI Finance, a Delhi-based NBFC. Some of the existing investors in the startup have also participated in this $4million funding round.
The funds raised through this round of funding will go towards expansion of their operations both geographically as well as in adding more products in its range being offered to their customers. Part of the proceeds will be utilized in shoring up their internal processes and infrastructure as well.
Rentickle.com is operated by AVA Lifestyle Products and Services and currently has operations in limited to Delhi, Gurugram, Noida (virtually NCR) and Hyderabad. Customers can find all their temporary requirements for furniture, appliances and other household essentials at one place and hire them for a fee.
The investors feel that the startup functions on a strong customer verification process which makes sure the defaulters are kept to the minimum, a necessity in this kind of business. Their rate of recovery of dues is quite impressive and bodes well for the future of the project. The promoters and the funders are equally opportunistic about the prospects online renting of lifestyle products and envisage a robust growth in the segment benefitting Rentickle.com in the medium and long term.
The project had received seed funding to the tune of $250, 000 from a group of angel investors in 2016. Rentickle.com has a few startups in the same segment to contend with for competition; these include CityFurnish, GrabOnRent, FlatFurnish and Furlenco and perhaps a few more.