D2C Startup Wakefit Raises $40 Million In Funding Led By Investcorp

Wakefit, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) mattress and furniture maker, has raised $40 million led by Investcorp.Existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Verlinvest and SIG also participated in the funding round.The company will use the funds to improve its delivery operations and factory, and to make inroads into tier II and tier III cities, cofounders Ankit Garg and Chaitanya Ramalingegowda told ET.“We feel we want to continue to invest in the machinery and build tech around it in 24 months,” Garg said. “The tech will decide on which products to prioritise based on demands that are coming in; decisions on the production floor when something has to be produced under certain costs and at a certain timeline.”Garg said the company will give more control to customers over the product, like customising furniture, which will be automatically communicated to the factory floor.“So, we will build a lot of technology in the entire manufacturing and distribution supply chain. The customer would have a lot more visibility into what is happening,” he said.Discover the stories of your interestBlockchain5 StoriesCyber-safety7 StoriesFintech9 StoriesE-comm9 StoriesML8 StoriesEdtech6 StoriesWakefit also plans to expand its offline stores to more than 100 from 12 currently.“After this fundraise we are going to invest a lot of time, money and energy to build the operations and logistics capabilities to enable us to take us to millions of homes through the supply chain,” Garg said.He said the company will open the next set of stores in smaller cities like Coimbatore, Salem, Mysuru, Mangaluru, and Patna.“We will go deeper into the top 20 cities which will be tier I and tier II cities and that is how the footprint is going to improve,” he said.Wakefit, which started off by making mattresses, has divided its business into three units - mattresses, accessories, and furniture.Garg said that the furniture business is growing 3x year on year and he expects the company to clock around Rs 220 crore in revenue from the new business this year. The company is betting big on its furniture business and it contributes about 25% of Wakefit’s total revenue, Garg said.Wakefit posted revenue of Rs 636 crore in FY22, a 54% jump from FY21.The company forecasts revenue to touch Rs 1,200 crore by FY24.About two-third of its sales comes from its own channels like its website, app and offline stores, while the rest is from marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart.