In May, Nickson CEO Cameron Johnson told NTX Inno he was closing on a “significant” Series A funding. Now, that round has closed.
The Dallas-based furnishing subscription platform landed a $12 million round led by Pendulum Opportunities, TechCrunch reports. It was joined by Motley Fool Ventures, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest and Backstage Capital, which was founded by Dallas-native Arlan Hamilton.
With the new funding, the subscription-based company is planning to invest in its technology as it looks to expand into Austin and Houston, where it has been recently beta testing and servicing from its Dallas warehouse. The new cash will also allow Nickson to plant a physical presence in those two cities. Currently, Nickson is only available in the Dallas area.
“We’re going to make a big splash in Austin this year and launch Houston, and just keep going city by city, but we want to grow in our home state first,” Johnson told Inno in May.
Nickson was launched in 2017, after Johnson, who has a background in real estate, noticed clients would often think they were renting the fully-furnished model unit. The startup’s platform onboards users with a style quiz. Users also upload things like the unit's layout, its size and the length of the lease. The company then furnishes the entire place with everything from large furniture items like a couch and bed to the details like vases and silverware.
The company has been steadily growing, with a current headcount of about 25. However, the pandemic has given it a boost, as more people move to the region and users look for contactless ways to have their place set up. So much so that at one point, Johnson said the company ran out of inventory and had to send users “emergency kits” with the essentials to get by until more could be sourced.
Johnson declined to share how many users Nickson has on its platform but previously said it has about 100,000 items in use. The TechCrunch report adds that the company’s user base grew by close to 700 percent last year.
Nickson joins other furnishing-related startups that have seen recent funding and expansions. Following a $15 million round it raised in 2020, Los Angeles-based furniture rental startup Fernish expanded into Texas, planting four employees in the region, with plans to ramp that up to 10 as it eyes moving into a 20,000 square-foot logistics hub south of Frisco. Fernish has also seen a pandemic-related boost, with a 300 percent increase in demand, according to its co-founder and CEO, Michael Barlow. Nickson operates differently from Fernish in that it doesn’t offer a la carte rentals, instead focusing on the entire unit.
“You click a button and give us the keys to your place. Then, you show up and find everything is moved,” Johnson previously said. “A tech-enabled solution turned out to be spot-on and right on time for the pandemic.”
