Material Depot, a home interior materials marketplace, has raised $10 Mn (about INR 90 Cr) in a Series A round co-led by Accel and Stellaris Venture Partners.
The round also saw participation from Whiteboard Capital, DeVC, Soma Capital, MyAsiaVC, along with multiple angel investors.
These included Livspace’s Ramakant Sharma, Curefoods’ Ankit Nagori, Bharatpe’s Shashvat Nakrani, Spinny’s Niraj Singh, Tracxn’s Abhishek Goyal and Supertails’ Vineet Khanna, among others.
Material Depot intends to use the funds to expand its offline presence by setting up experiential stores across Bengaluru and Hyderabad over the next few months, cofounder Manish Reddy told Inc42. The startup currently operates 3 experience centres in Bengaluru, where it is also headquartered.
“These are very high ticket purchases, made once or twice in a decade, and people want to make very informed decisions. That’s why the offline experience centres play a key role in conversion. So business acquisition happens online, and the conversion happens offline,” Reddy said.
Founded in 2021 by Reddy and Sarthak Agrawal, Materials Depot is a digital marketplace focused on home interior materials, connecting contractors, interior designers, and developers with verified suppliers.
Customers can shop from its curated collections of home interiors, or use inputs from their own ideas to find materials on the platform. The startup offers 3D visualisation of the materials, and will use the funds to double down on its tech stack, which also includes technology led product designing, supply chain and inventory planning.
The platform sources materials across categories like plywood, laminates, boards, wallpapers, panels, laminates, tiles, among others. It intends to introduce other lines like bathroom fittings in the near future.
While it does offer pan-India deliveries, such deliveries are taken up on a case to case basis contingent on the order value and willingness to pay delivery fee. Material Depot handles shipping inhouse via a leased delivery fleet, and most deliveries are concentrated in Hyderabad and Bengaluru currently.
The startup has also launched various private label brands since starting operations in 2021. Currently, they make up for around 60% of its product portfolio, and it has partnered with various vendors across India for contract manufacturing of these products. Around 10% of its materials are imported from countries like China, South Korea and Vietnam.
The startup is positioning itself as being consumer focussed, with its partnerships with professional interior designers and contractors now down to 40%.
As per Reddy, it wants to focus on digital native consumers that are designing either their first and second homes, and won’t hesitate to turn to omnichannel brands for their needs rather than relying on the fragmented offline space.
Material Depot has raised nearly $14.5 Mn till date, and was part of Accel’s preseed and seed investing platform Accel Atoms. It was also a part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 cohort.