Furnishing a home can be one of the most time-consuming tasks for new renters or homeowners. Between visiting local furniture stores and browsing websites like Amazon or West Elm, the options can be overwhelming.
But a new Chicago startup called Cora has built an online platform that consolidates furniture from a host of sites, aiming to help simplify and quicken the furniture-buying process by showing consumers all their options, searchable by price, quality and aesthetic.
“Cora is building the Kayak of furniture, where you can visually search hundreds of furniture sites at once,” said Sara Taylor Demos, Cora’s co-founder and CEO.
Demos came up with the idea for Cora while decorating her own home a couple of years ago. She could picture what kinds of pieces she wanted, but couldn’t find the right ones.
“There was overwhelming choice and I didn’t know if I was getting the smartest option or if there was something else I was missing,” said Demos, who has a tech background, having worked at Solstice and FCB Global.
Shortly after furnishing her own home, Demos’ brother’s house was destroyed by a tornado. He had to replace almost every piece of furniture he had. It took him about a year to do so, in part because he spent so much time browsing around looking for the best deal that also matched his tastes.
That’s when Demos’ idea for Cora solidified. She launched the startup just in April, and is currently only selling sofas on the platform, but has about 35,000 of them on it. The sofas have been sourced from a variety of retailers, though Demos said the startup is hoping to work brands like Chicago-based furniture startup InteriorDefine, and bigger retail chains like Crate and Barrel in the future.
Demos said since the startup is so new, they haven’t made a sale yet, but when they do, Cora will be operating on an affiliate-based revenue model. When an item is sold through their platform, Cora will keep a percentage of the cost.
Besides allowing customers the ability to essentially browse several furniture sites at once, Cora also lets users who already know what kinds of items they’re looking for upload photos of them. Using algorithms, artificial intelligence and computer vision, Cora will present similar-looking pieces to the user.
“People will see something in a photo on Pinterest and they don’t know where to find that one specific item that they’re looking for,” Demos said. “We believe a picture should be enough to explain your style and that you should spend less time making smart decisions and more time enjoying them.”
In the next couple of months, Demos said they’ll be adding upholstered chairs, tables and lighting for sale on the platform. Eventually, Cora plans to cover all furniture categories, from living room furniture to bathroom pieces.
“The long-term goal is that you’ll be able to give us images of whole room scenes that you like,” Demos said. “There’s a lot of options with computer vision and the algorithms we’re making to mimic designer choices.”
If a couple has two different design tastes, they’ll be able to upload photos of each and Cora will provide furniture suggestions that equally mesh the two aesthetics together. Cora will also be able to view an image of a room and distinguish what should stay, go and be added based on an aesthetic profile.
Even farther down the line, Demos said she’d like to use Cora’s computer vision capabilities to help consumers not just find furniture, but real estate, matching consumers to their dream homes based on size and design.
Cora’s team of four works out of 1871, and the startup is currently part of this year’s WiSTEM cohort, 1871’s 12-week program that provides resources and coaching to female tech founders. Twelve startups are in this year’s cohort.
“There’s great comradery amongst the women,” Demos said. “It’s really about learning about each other’s companies and helping each other. The material is focused on getting us ready to grow, expand and scale.”
