Pepperfry to raise up to Rs 500 cr in 2 months

Online furniture retailer Pepperfry on Tuesday said it will raise fresh funds of USD 60-80 million (up to Rs 500 crore) in the next two months.

The company is in talks with a number of investors, including existing ones like Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) and Bertelsmann, for the new round. "We are looking to raise funds of something between USD 60 million and USD 80 million.

The talks are at the final stage and we expect to close the deal by May," Pepperfry COO Ashish Shah told PTI.

Pepperfry will mainly use the Series D round funding for increasing its product portfolio, offline and online campaigns and upgrading its logistics facilities. "We are currently on an expansion mode and we need to invest a lot of money in reaching people.

At present, we reach 150 cities and we want to take that number up. We also want to increase the variety of items and we will invest the funds mainly for these purposes," he said. The company has raised USD 28 million (about Rs 175 crore) from NVP and Bertelsmann in three rounds of investment so far.

"Our investors are very happy with us as we are doing well. They are ready to participate in this round too. We are also talking to a few other investors as well," Shah said.

Shah said the margins in the online furniture market is between 20-30 percent, which is higher than most other products and therefore, the competition is on the rise. "As a result of this investors are rallying up to spend in this sector," he said. Pepperfry is also looking to ramp up its offline presence by increasing the number of brick-and-mortar stores it has.

At present, it has one flagship store in Mumbai and three smaller outlets in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi airports. By the end of the year, Pepperfry plans to add 19 stores at different locations across the country.