Deal focus: Shunwei backs scalable home design model

Inspired by Houzz, a US-based online platform that connects homeowners and designers for home remodelling and design, three overseas returnees established Kujiale in China in 2013. 

The company started out as a cloud-based service that provided homeowners with simple tools to create designs and render them in a 3D preview format in a matter of seconds. The software subsequently found favor among interior designers, furniture brands, and home furnishing companies, who use it to share design plans with clients and received feedback.  

“The company gained traction because it has developed a great product that can increase designers’ productivity. With its tools, designers can produce home plans with furniture and wall paintings, and convert them into 3D images. They are much nicer than simple floor plans,” says Tuck Lye Koh, a founding partner and CEO at Shunwei Capital. “There are many interior home design software programs in the market, but they are not user-friendly as Kujiale.”

Encouraged by this popularity, Shunwei recently led a $100 million Series D round for the company, with participation from Temasek Holdings-owned Pavilion Capital. Existing investors IDG Capital, GGV Capital – which led both a Series B round in 2014 and a Series C round in 2016 – Yunqi Capital, Hearst Ventures, and Linear Venture also took part. The investment gave Kujiale a post-money valuation of $600 million.

Kujiale has evolved from a free service model to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, with designers and furnishing companies paying annual subscription fees, although some basic tools are still free to use. The company now has more than three million interior designers – or 40% of the total number of professionals in this field in China – and 10 million homeowners on its platform. They exchange about 200,000 interior furnishing plans every day. 

This interaction is facilitated by a database that allows designers to search previous design projects for specific residential buildings to use as references, while homeowners can contact designers directly if they find a style they like. 

Kujiale also works with 12,000 furniture brands, allowing them to share their furniture designs with designers for use in projects. Homeowners can also purchase furniture from retailers through Kujiale’s website.  

Shunwei plans to help Kujiale penetrate deeper into China’s home renovation market, which is said to be worth about RMB4 trillion a year. The new capital will go towards improving big data systems, upgrading the cloud design platform, and entering overseas markets as well. The US, Southeast Asia and India are the main targets.

“International expansion is part of the company’s business plan. As a software company, once it has built a great product for customers, the implementation of business expansion is quite straightforward. It’s very scalable business model,” says Koh.   

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Greater China
• Technology
• Expansion
• China
• Shunwei Capital Partners
• Temasek Holdings
• IDG Capital Partners
• GGV Capital
• TMT