Pepperfry is the largest online furniture store in India. Pepperfry was founded in November 2011 by Ambreesh Murty and Ashish Shah. Pepperfry mainly deals into home decor segments like furnishing, lighting and lamps, kitchen appliances, housekeeping and bath equipment, and dining. Pepperfry has more than 3.5 million registered users and more than 5 million monthly visits.
Founders of Pepperfry:
Ashish Shah:
Ashish Shah is co-founder and COO of Pepperfry. Ashish completed his graduation in Chemical engineering from Pune University and later pursued an advanced diploma in materials management from Institute of management and technology Ghaziabad. Before launching Pepperfry.com he worked for 15 years in Sales operation, business development, supply chain, and logistics sectors in some of the biggest companies like eBay and Commerce One India at C1 India Pvt Ltd.
Ambreesh Murty:
Ambreesh Murty is another co-founder of Pepperfry and working as CEO of the company. Ambreesh went to Oxford College of Business Managment for his MBA and worked as SAP SD consultant for 7 years and after that, he worked as country manager for eBay India. Ambreesh and Ashis met at eBay and collectively work on the idea of Pepperfry.
Funding:
The company started in seed funding of 5 million dollars from Norwest Venture Partners. After the launch of the website in Jan 2012, in Series B funding Norwest Venture Partners invested another 8 million dollars in the company. Then in May 2014, Norwest Venture Partners and Bertelsmann Investments invested another 15 million dollars.
After successful 3 years of Pepperfry, many investors like Norwest Venture Partners and Bertelsmann Investments, Goldman Sachs, and Zodius Venture Partners invested 130 million dollars in Pepperfry.
Pepperfry Studio:
Before December 2014, Pepperfry was an exclusively online store for home decor and lifestyle products but in December 2014, Pepperfry opened its first online store named Pepperfry Studio in Kanjurmarg, Mumbai. In Pepperfry studio you can get everything from expert guidance to Networking like space planning and conceptualization, selection of home furniture, and a guide for Material and Specifications etc.
After successful trial in Mumbai Pepperfry opened their offline store in 10 more cities and provide high-quality furniture and home decor products
In last year March Pepperfry opened its first warehouse in Thane Mumbai, It is the largest furniture warehouse in the country as claimed by the company. Today Pepperfry has 17 warehouses all across the country.
Competitors of Pepperfry:
Just after the inception of Pepperfry Jan 2012 two new companies launched their online market place for home decor and furniture. In March 2012 FabFurnish started and later, Urban Ladder joined the fray.
Today PepperFry and Urban Ladder are the frontrunners in the race. Even though UrbanLadder has raised more funding and has more yearly revenue, Pepperfry deliver its products to more than 500 cities (using own vehicles) across the country, which is the highest reach in this segment which is more than Urban Ladder and Fab Furnishing combined.
Revenue of Pepperfry:
In the fiscal year, 2015-2016 Pepperfry posted revenues of Rs98 crore for the year which is around 4 times more than the year 2014-2015 which was 25 crores. However, the losses have been surged to Rs154 crore in FY16 as against Rs80 crore in the corresponding period last year.
Pepperfry Achievements:
Pepperfry has become the first option for the people in Urban Areas of the country when it comes to buying home furniture. Today Pepperfry has more than 3.5 million registered users and more than 5 million monthly visits.
Pepperfry provides you more than 1 million products to choose from and delivered products to more than 500 cities with 17 fulfillment centers. PepperFry has opened 20 offline stores named Studio Pepperfry across the country. Pepperfry sells a product in every 25 seconds.
