Startup Street: Furnishing Startup Homestudio’s Automated Warehouse 

Artificial intelligence may be closer ‘home' than we think. Homestudio's multilevel warehouse in Bengaluru is spread over 40,000 square feet, but it's run by just a handful of employees, said Founder Alok Duggal in an interview with BloombergQuint. Meanwhile, hotel aggregator OYO Rooms partnered with Ola Money for value added services for its customers and Portuguese smart shoe startup Kinematix shut shop.

A lot took place this week on Startup Street...

Homestudio's Automated Warehouse

Home furnishing startup Homestudio prides itself in having furnished more than 700 homes within a year of its launch in Bengaluru. Some credit must go to its automated warehouse which significantly lowers the time taken between placement of an order, and processing and installation.

Homestudio's 40,000 square feet multilevel warehouse is operated only by 11 people, said Founder and Chief Operating Officer Alok Duggal in a phone interview with BloombergQuint.

When the luxury furniture startup's deliveries arrive at the warehouse, the components are scanned by the company's software. Thereon, the entire process is automated, Duggal said. This allows faster and smoother installation of products at customers' homes, Duggal added.

The startup, which received $5 million funding in December 2015, is now looking to expand from Karnataka to tier-II cities like Chandigarh, Kochi, Baroda, Surat, Ahmedabad, Pune and Gurugram within the year. “The funding we had received will be sufficient for another year or two,” Duggal said, explaining that their costs are lower than peers because of minimal marketing and a ‘no-discounts' policy.

Homestudio's rivals in the Indian interior furnishing startup industry are players such as the well-funded Livspace and the profitable Furdo.

Smart Shoes Startup Shuts Shop On Funding Crunch

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Kinematix, maker of the Tune smart shoe that analyses fitness, shut shop this week due to lack of funds. The Portuguese startup had officially launched in the wearable fitness technology market in October 2016.

"Kinematix's investor has decided not to invest in Kinematix any further other than a final amount aimed to satisfy the company's previous financial commitments," the startup's website read.

The Tune application will still be available for its users to capture data and receive reports, but all cloud-based services will be removed, Kinematix said. The app will be available on Google Play and App Store until October 31, 2017, it added. The company, however, is not offering any refunds.

OYO Rooms Partners With Ola Money

India's largest hotels network startup OYO Rooms entered into a partnership with Ola Money for easy room and cab payments for its customers.

The partnership will allow OYO customers to make one-touch payments for their hotel rooms through their Ola Money wallets for both web and app bookings, the hotel aggregator said in a media statement.

Ola Money is an e-wallet feature which was first introduced in the cab-hailing startup Ola's application. It is now used for payment of multiple services and utilities.

"The strategic partnership with OYO not only widens our user base by reaching out to millions of OYO users but is a step towards creating a holistic ecosystem that enables greater convenience in payment and addresses the last-mile connectivity for millions of customers," said Anuj Sahai, vice president of alliances at Ola.

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