Inhabitr Now Available In 10 Cities, Chicago Furniture Rental Platform Raises $4M

Startup Inhabitr has raised $4 million in Series A funding as it continues to expand its platform for furniture rental.

The funding round was completed on Wednesday and was led by Great North Labs, according to TechCrunch. Inhabitr developed a solution for the hassles of moving furniture and the costs of acquiring one.

The Chicago-based startup's platform is an Amazon for selecting and renting out furniture for the bedroom, living room, dining area, or for home offices. The items that Inhabitr puts up for rent are not manufactured by them. Instead, they work with people who do, and partner with furniture stores to add more selection to their existing ones.

Renting, not buying

Starting at $69 a month, customers can order a pre-arranged set for a specific area in their house, but if they have a preference for doing the furniture picking themselves, then they can rent piece by piece and build a set of their own with or without the assistance of the company's designers. Individual pieces cost $30 a month and could run up to $150, depending on the item.

Compared to purchasing a large sofa from IKEA, for example, prices could range from $500 up to over $1,000. When the furniture gets old, Inhabitr charges a $99 fee to replace them with new ones.

Solving delivery

Inhabitr also takes care of the transferring, which is one of the major troubles of having a bulk of furniture around the house, and white-glove installation at no extra cost.

Founded in 2016, the company came to life out of the pains of the owners who had experienced the hassles of moving in and out.

In speaking about the business, co-founder Ankur Agrawal said, "Furniture as a category is an operations-heavy category and there is little understanding around the industry."

"Investors think of this as a non-sexy category and are looking for an obsolete business that software can come and disrupt. But the next feat of iteration will come from brick and mortar innovation," he added.

Currently, Inhabitr's services are open to these cities, Austin, Baltimore, Dallas, Washington DC, Detroit, Indianapolis, Madison, Milwaukee, Phoenix and Seattle.