Kenyan home furniture startup MoKo raises $6m to accelerate growth

Kenyan home furniture startup MoKo raises $6m to accelerate growth

Published: 17-10-2022 15:26:00 | By: Pie Kamau | hits: 3782 | Tags:

Kenyan home furniture startup MoKo announced it raised $6.5 million in a Series B funding round, which is a combination of debt and equity. The round was co-led by U.S.-based investment fund Talanton and Swiss investor AlphaMundi Group.

The startup has been around since 2014 when it was first named Watervale Investment and focused on addressing challenges in the supply of raw materials for furniture manufacturers. In 2017, the company started testing the market with its first consumer product (a mattress) before launching the MoKo Home + Living which has morphed into the furniture business. The MoKo mattress is still one of the company’s most popular products.

Eric Kouskalis, Co-founder, MoKo: ''We entered this market because we saw a real opportunity to guarantee and deliver quality furniture. We also wanted to bring convenience to customers, by making it easy for them to buy home furniture, the largest asset for most families in Kenya. We plan to have an offering for each major piece of furniture in a typical home - bed frame, TV stand, coffee table, carpet. We are also developing even more affordable products in existing product categories - sofas and mattresses. The potential for growth is what excites us the most. There’s still so much room to better serve millions of families in Kenya. That’s just the beginning - MoKo’s model is relevant for most markets in Africa, where families face similar obstacles in making comfortable, welcoming homes.''

The company has grown nearly five times over the last three years, with its products finding a home in more than 370,000 households in Kenya, and hopes to hit millions of homes over the next couple of years. MoKo is investing heavily in holistic digital processes. Besides building formidable online channels, the company is creating more partnerships with retailers and outlets as a way of increasing revenue. It also makes use of a unique digital technology in its production, which has seen it purchase equipment that takes up complex woodworking designs from its team of engineers and executes them in seconds.

MoKo is eyeing the larger African market and hopes to expand into three new markets by 2025.

moko.co.ke