Gurgaon-based furniture, furnishings, and consumer appliances rental startup Cityfurnish has recently become a part of the prestigious US-based Y-Combinator. The American seed accelerator, Y-Combinator provides seed funding, consultation and connections to startups through a careful selection of promising businesses across the world. Started in March 2005, the venture capital firm has spawned a number of highly successful startups including Airbnb, reddit, Dropbox, Quora, Stripe and Cruise among others. Since its inception, YC has invested $150,000 for 7 percent equity in its companies.

Cityfurnish will be a part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2019 batch. Based in Mountain View, California, Y Combinator mentors over a hundred startups each year through its 12-week program. It interviews and selects two or more batches of companies per year in exchange for 7 percent equity. The startups move to Silicon Valley for 3 months, during which we work intensively with them to get the company into the best possible shape and refine their pitch to investors. The program culminates in a demo day, where founders of the chosen startups pitch their companies to an audience of Silicon Valley’s top investors. The firm, a community of over 4,000 successful founders, is consistently ranked at the top of US accelerators and has a combined valuation of $100B.

Neerav Jain, founder and CEO, Cityfurnish said that being chosen by the top US accelerator among a gamut of global startups in itself is a huge validation of our business. This program will help them catapult their growth and expansion in India. They plan to further strengthen their positioning in the Indian market by introducing more product categories both vertically and horizontally. The company will keep its continuous focus on improving the customer experience by providing white glove subscription experience, he said.

Founded in September 2015 by Neerav Jain, Cityfurnish offers high quality solid sheesham wood furniture, furnishings, consumer appliances and fitness equipment on a monthly subscription for household and commercial purposes. The company aims to set consumers free from the shackles of buying expensive commodities such as furniture and consumer appliances so that they can rather invest in meaningful experiences and other valuable assets.

The company was born out of its founder’s personal experiences when Neerav realized how difficult it can be to move, shift and buy furniture while changing cities, and that’s how he got the idea of incepting a brand that can ease the shifting blues of the increasing migrant population and yet offers an exceptional quality and service that allows consumers to experience the joy of shared economy. Cityfurnish accords liberty to the millennials by providing an end-to-end solution to the lifestyle needs of a migrant, hence giving a strong platform to the millennia to save money by renting furniture and home appliances along with other equipment.

Buoyed by the increasing consumer base in India, the brand has witnessed a 100 percent YOY growth in FY 2018-19 besides expanding exponentially with a 100% subscriber growth rate and 50 percent customer retention rate in the last 12months. The brand is currently servicing cities including Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune and is now working on expanding to Hyderabad and Chennai. Cityfurnish works out of 9 fulfillment Centers across 5 cities including Noida, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore and are looking at expanding further to newer markets.