How Flipspaces Is Propelling Its Technology Suite To Redefine The Future Of Commercial Interior Designing

Flipspaces is a tech-based interior design start-up offering end to end office interior design solutions right from design to closure. The firm boasts of being the first global design tech venture transforming the commercial interior design industry through its proprietary tech suite powering space discovery, design and delivery.

Flipspaces: The pioneer of the interior design tech era

Flipspaces is a VR and tech-based design and contracting venture that aims at disrupting the way consumers design and execute the interiors of their spaces. It is India's only web-enabled platform for the discovery of commercial interior products. The firm provides all services of design, contracting and PMC under one roof! It offers a single point of contact and enables you to transform the look of your office space in an efficient manner.

The start-up believes that its tech-driven approach gives it a competitive edge in the market. Once they conduct a requirement analysis of its clients, they take them through the 3D designing and virtual design of their spaces. At this stage, the clients are in charge of the designs created for their space and through their virtual reality to get an overview of their future offices created on the basis of their requirement as well as the firm’s expertise and technology suite. It gives you a VR tour of what the finished office space would look like and is followed by the next stage of project execution. Right from the planning to offering end-to-end solutions, the firm designs tailor-made offices for its clients in a timeline of just 8 weeks!

Flipspaces resilient approach to surviving the pandemic

While the industries across the globe were struggling to survive the pandemic induced crisis, the firm also witnessed a sluggish period. But it was resilient enough to seek growth opportunities during such turbulent times. The office spaces during this time transitioned from paperwork to cloud storage and adopted the paperless route. Flipspaces utilized this time to embrace digital adoption and diverted its focus on technology with a two-fold objective.

The first was to make their technology suite more comprehensive to facilitate internal efficiency and scale in commercial interior design and build domain. What is indeed notable is the fact that Flipspaces’ US Design and Build revenue has grown 25X revenue-wise, from Q1-FY20 to Q1-FY-21, backed by technology. Secondly, from its internal tech-suite, the leading commercial interior design and building firm launched, VIZSTORE which is the first SAAS product for third party furniture and furnishing brands and retailers. Powered by gamification and Virtual Reality, it allows customers to walk through the virtualized showroom environment. This offering has been well received by the market and has been used extensively and validated as part of an internal tech-suite. Over 300+ brands and retailers have been already using the technology from the first phase of its rollout.

After the second wave, the tech-enabled design and build market was prompt enough to revive in Q2 this year. It has $10 Million of design and build mandates at an empanelment level across India and the US. The firm is now trying to cope up with the new normal in the post-pandemic times and shares that it continues to acquire new business due to its strong brand loyalty and relationship with its clientele. Various known start-ups and brands such as Bharatpe, Nobroker, Openmoney, Indwealth, Gaana and Addverb have been recently added to the firm’s family.

The journey from its inception to the leading player in the commercial design and building domain

The Founders realized that the clients had to suffer majorly due to broken experiences with other stakeholders i.e. builders, brokers, product suppliers and contractors because of the lack of one consolidated tech platform. Hence, they launched Flipspaces with an aim to bridge this gap in the market and introduce a venture that would help connect design visualisation, product supply chain and execution management backed by technology.

Ever since its inception in 2015, the start-up has experienced exponential growth within a short span of time. It is now recognized for its tech-driven approach and has acquired the leading position in the commercial design and build industry. It now boasts of a robust global presence with dedicated offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and more recently in Boston.

So far, Flipspaces has executed various projects and has transformed more than 5 million sq. ft commercial spaces for renowned companies across the domains of corporates, startups, MNCs, retail brands, and SMEs. The firm’s marquee clientele includes Bosch, The Time Of India Group, Aditya Birla Group, Larsen & Toubro, NoBroker, News Corp, Regus, Coverfox.com, Indus, IND Wealth etc. just to name a few.

Additionally, the firm has also harnessed the power of advanced technologies to facilitate partnerships with pedigree commercial space owners and developers e.g. Lodha, Godrej, TATA Realty, Mahagun, Brigade, Salarpuria Sattva, Paras Buildtech, MMR Group, HM Constructions, for over 1.5 million sq.ft total area across various commercial real estate projects which creates a ready future business funnel for tech-led design and build of over $50 million.

The future roadmap for Flipspaces

Expressing his thoughts on the industry’s present scenario and future landscape, Kunal Sharma - Founder and CEO of Flipspaces said, “There has been a steady recovery in the demand from the commercial real estate industry post-pandemic which has further expedited recovery of the commercial interior design segment as well. The commercial interior design segment is expected to hit an all-time high with the combined market size for India & US estimated at a whopping $120 billion by 2023.”

Sharing about Flipspaces growth and future plans, Kunal adds, “As far as Flipspaces is concerned, we are at the cusp of emerging as a market-defining venture. Backed by our tech-suite for Interior design, our US vertical has exhibited a growth of 25X in the last 4 quarters and it is now profitable at the EBITDA level. On the other hand, VIZSTORE is witnessing significant growth amongst furniture and furnishing brands, retailers and SMBs. All in all, the future of Flipspaces seems progressive and we are aiming at gaining business worth $10 million in the next 6 months in India and the US.”

Considering the start-up’s inorganic growth in the US has been significant, the firm is now hoping to grow the US businesses 5X from H1 in the second half of this year. Flipspaces is also focusing on expanding its team and geographical footprints to maintain strong margin profiles.

It has recently received a total Funding of $4.5 M (Series A& Pre-Series B) from investors such as Carpediem Capital, Consortium led by Prashasta Seth (Ex-CEO IIFL AMC and Founder of Prudent Investment Managers). With this raised funding, Flipspaces is planning to allocate the funds to drive its US vertical growth. In addition, the start-upwill also be using this capital for upscaling VIZSTORE and strengthening technology strategy for business acceleration.

Flipspaces is a unique market defining venture with a two-pronged revenue model of being tech-led design and build start-up and offering SAAS-based product, VIZSTORE. With VIZWORLD, the proprietary tech-suite within Flipspaces, the firm is looking forward to creating one integrated tech engine which creates efficiency and customer delight in each step of this process. On the whole, it is working with the sole aim to democratize the commercial design and build industry by leveraging the potential of new-age technologies!