Ramakant Sharma: Designing Magic in Home Renovation

A serial entrepreneur who strongly believes in disruption through technology and problem-solving, Ramakant Sharmma in a career spanning over 17 years, Sharma has not only built two companies (Livspace, largest home design and renovation platform and Myntra, largest fashion e-commerce platform in India) from the ground up but is also an active angel investor (40+ companies) and a board member for several VC funded startups He states that the combined valuations of his portfolio companies is around $2.5-3 billion.  Co-Founder of Livspace, the startup is revolutionising the current interior led technology space through world-class innovations and advanced services. “Livspace is a unique platform which provides cloud services to physical certified design centers, freelance interior designers to use and automate the entire end-to-end design creation in 2D & 3D, shopping cart creation and fulfilment workflow, “ said Sharma.

It is India’s leading home design and renovation platform which is currently clocking around $155 million annual sales with a run rate of more than 42 per cent gross profits. The platform provides online end-to-end home design and renovation platform that offers a marketplace to connect homeowners with certified interior designers and curated vendors across furniture, decor, modular kitchen and closets and various other home improvement services categories.

Discussing about his vision Sharma told BW Businesswolrd that he aspires to make Livspace one of the most innovative internet companies to come out of India and be a true technology and design innovator. “The company has also seen employee numbers growing at over 500 per cent since launch,” added Sharma. He informed that a company is made by its people and they always focus on bringing world-class talent and forming a disruptive team with an infectious energy that thrives in valley-like culture.  “The team at Livspace enjoys autonomy wherein we maintain intellectual, honest and remain accessible to all employees and reward innovations and risk-taking,” elucidated Sharma. The platform helps interior designers accelerate the design cycle and deliver a predictable and transparent consumer experience, a three-side platform approach to home design The three-side marketplace connects homeowners, certified designers and vendors/suppliers (furniture, modular, decor, services, etc.) to enable home design and renovation needs. This unique approach delivers superior economics, disruptive efficiencies and higher transparency. The business model for Livspace is similar to e-commerce: selling products and services of various curated vendors and its own white-label products and charging take rate. The platform gives a sales commission to Interior Designers through which designers have experienced an exponential increase in design and conversion speed and manifold increase in income. Sharma discussing about the growth plans of the company, added, “ Livspace plans to design interiors for one in every fifteen homes in Indian metros by 2022.”

In India, the home design market industry is witnessing hyper-growth and expected to reach $18 billion by 2022 in the major metro cities. “We see an opportunity to be one of the biggest brands to emerge out of India and go global. We have successfully kept the soul of our early days and our core values intact, even though a hyper-growth phase,” Sharma stated. The company’s approach is to solve the problem through the use of proprietary technology to organise a fragmented seller and vendor ecosystem while bringing transparency and empowerment to all stakeholders.