Online interior design service Havenly makes moves to expand its business with the acquisition of The Inside, a direct-to-consumer home furnishings brand that has grown nearly 600 percent in the past two years.
The two companies have worked in partnership, with Havenly’s interior designers sourcing product from The Inside for their clients. Havenly co-founder and CEO Lee Mayer said deepening that partnership will allow the design service to expand its offerings to clients.
“We really like [The Inside’s] ethos of how they approach furnishings and bringing that to a new audience,” she said. “Bringing collaborations with heritage design houses to a new audience really jibes with our messaging and how we think about where we fit in the world.”
Founded in 2018, The Inside aims to provide a high-end furnishings shopping experience at a more accessible price point. The retailer partnered with brands like Salamandré and Old World Weavers to offer exclusive collections, and allowed shoppers to customize furniture fabrics.
That model aligns well with Havenly’s business model, which aims to take the intimidation out of the process of working with a designer while making it more accessible for younger consumers.
Another big draw for Havenly? The Inside’s sourcing capabilities.
“A lot of The Inside’s supply chain is domestic,” Mayer said. “And while raw materials are an issue, what we’ve been impressed with is that while The Inside has seen lead times increase, we think they have a really solid supply chain, even in this climate.”
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Mayer said having direct access to suppliers will help Havenly not only better manage pandemic-induced sourcing disruptions, but also streamline and scale the business going forward.
“We’ve never really been able to successfully control our supply chain,” she said. “We’ve always operated through other people and their supply chain. So owning something of our own where we can think about suppliers differently and make our own decisions is the real benefit during these times, particularly if this climate persists.”
This acquisition comes on the heels of Havenly’s exclusive multi-year partnership with Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club and the acquisition of a cross-platform room layout and 3D visualization technology from Occipital, a leader in spatial computing.
The Inside co-founder Danielle Walish will join Havenly to manage the transition. She will be joined by all other current employees of The Inside.
Mayer said this acquisition will allow Havenly to continue its expansion goals and better reach young consumers as they become homeowners.
“Our goal in general has been to build the destination for home and home design for this new generation,” she said. “The Inside for us is a platform to continue to build an assortment that we think makes sense for our customers and be able to offer a comprehensive solution for this new, digitally native consumer.”