Editor's note: This week we introducing Triad Inno's Startups to Watch, a new program that highlights early-stage companies primed for a big year. The feature is a key component of our new Triad Inno platform emphasizing entrepreneurship as a dynamo to move this region forward.
Live Furnish
Year founded: 2018
No. of employees: 62
Top executive: Preet Singh, CEO/founder
Address: 500 W. Fifth St., Winston-Salem 27101
Why watch it: Live Furnish’s technology helps companies, such as furniture firms, create virtual images without the need for costly and time-consuming product photography or computer-generated imagery (CGI). The company just raised $6 million more, has grown its customer roster ten-fold and has quickly hired dozens of people. Next up is adding two dozen more locally, plus setting up offices in Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and New York.
In the startup world, it’s relatively common for a company that starts in a small market to eventually move to a larger market. But Live Furnish did just the opposite.
The virtual reality content facilitator for the furniture industry moved to Winston-Salem from San Francisco almost two years ago. With the "home furnishings capital of the world" down the road in High Point, the relocation was a strategic move by founder Preet Singh to better serve the company’s growing Triad client base.
The move paid off. In late September, Triad Business Journal reported that Live Furnish had experienced a growth rate of 450% so far in 2021. That rate jumped 200 percentage points in two months, with Singh reporting that in 2021 Live Furnish grew a total of 650%. This year, Live Furnish also grew from serving just under 10 enterprise customers to over 100 enterprise customers in the home furnishings industry.
To accommodate this level of growth, Live Furnish grew from a 15-person team to 62 people across three continents. Singh expects to hire for an additional 25 positions in the Triad in the next four months as well.
Singh is not planning on slowing down any time soon. In January, Live Furnish will double its number of offices, adding Germany and United Kingdom locations to its roster, which includes the Winston-Salem location and a location in India. The company is also in the process of opening a Canadian office.
“The reason we picked those markets is that’s where the largest e-commerce for home furnishings is happening that are also already modern markets,” Singh said. “Adoption of technology is a whole lot easier when the cost structure supports automation.”
For those new offices, Singh expects to hire four employees in Germany, three in the United Kingdom and five in Canada.
Singh says one challenge of growing quickly is finding talent, especially in a smaller market such as the Triad. He plans to open an office in New York too and hire people from there.
Live Furnish has been well-funded since its founding, with TBJ reporting that the company had raised a total of $1.5 million as of September, including funding from Greenville, South Carolina venture capital firm VentureSouth. Live Furnish is even backed by famed Silicon Valley angel investor Jason Calacanis, who has invested in companies such as Uber, Airbnb and Calm.
In August 2020, Live Furnish completed its first round of fundraising, raising over $1.1 million from four investors. And at the beginning of December, Live Furnish closed its second round of fundraising, raising just over $6 million from three investors, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Singh also placed first in the Center for Creative Economy’s 2019 Velocity Creative Accelerator program and was awarded $25,000 in seed-stage investment and a $5,000 technology service from Sightsource.
Singh expects to have another fundraising round at the end of 2022 or early in 2023.
Q&A with Preet Singh
How does Live Furnish differ from computer-generated imagery (CGI)?
Think about it like this: CGI is image processing, rendering, creating beautiful images – and it’s the job of experts. You need to go to university for something like that for about four years, then work a job for two, three years before you can produce high-quality stuff. Our platform and technology and the automations we built and the network we built on top of that helps people that have no 3D or engineering skills produce extremely high-quality CGI content. Whether they’re using it to sell their products on Wayfair, populate their social media, or on a B2C e-commerce website, that’s when our platform gets used.
How are you handing your company’s tremendous growth?
Look at me – I don’t sleep anymore! I’m just kidding. Our team, the core team I’ve built the business with, is solid, and the new people who have joined over the past year are all super enthusiastic. It’s always crazy because the more you do, the less you feel you’ve accomplished. We are making progress not at the speed at which our minds think but at the speed at which our hands can work.
Do you expect to keep Live Furnish’s headquarters in Winston-Salem or move to a larger market with more readily available talent?
I expect to keep them here because our whole sales team, account management and creative services have all been built here. I like the place a lot. I live a four-minute walk from my office. I lived in San Francisco before that and New Delhi, so I’ve never had that. I like the cost of living here. I like Winston – I just don’t like the talent I find here. You’ve got to go where either where your customer is or your talent is. We’re not going to switch headquarters; we’re just going to hire a bunch of people.
Coming tomorrow morning: Guerrilla RF
