Trampoline Raises $5M Seed Round to Connect Independent Home Décor Retailers With Indian Manufacturers

June 13, 2024

Trampoline, a cross-border B2B home décor brand founded in December 2023, has closed a $5 million seed round led by Matrix Partners India and WaterBridge Ventures, with an additional $2 million in venture debt from Alteria Capital. The capital will be used to strengthen the company's supply chain and sourcing capabilities, advance new product development, and build out the early team. Trampoline is co-headquartered in London and Gurgaon, and was founded by Abhik Ghosh, previously a senior leader at Wayfair; Anushka Mahanti, who led go-to-market strategies for global brands at Amazon; and Varun Deo, also a Wayfair alumnus. The three co-founders bring a combined 40-plus years of experience across category management, supply chain, marketing, and product development.

Independent retailers — shops, interior designers, and wholesalers who buy in relatively small quantities — account for more than 70% of the $800 billion global Home and Living market, yet they have historically been underserved by a supply chain built for large-volume buyers. The traditional export model connecting Indian manufacturers with overseas retailers is characterised by fragmented intermediaries, opaque pricing, inconsistent quality assurance, and high minimum order quantities that price out smaller buyers. This leaves independent retailers unable to access the breadth and quality of product that consumers increasingly expect, while Indian manufacturing SMEs — a sector that exports over $10 billion in home décor products annually — lack a reliable channel to global demand beyond trading relationships built on trust and familiarity rather than data.

Trampoline is built to close this gap. The company operates as a full-stack, design-to-delivery platform that gives independent retailers access to a curated catalogue of ethically manufactured Indian home décor products, with low or zero minimum order quantities, accretive payment terms, and integrated quality control at the factory level. On the supplier side, the platform uses data-driven catalogue management, demand forecasting, and tech-enabled QC and supply chain tooling to give Indian SME manufacturers the infrastructure to serve global retail at scale. The result is a design-led, branded experience at price points and terms that work for independent buyers — a departure from the commoditised, low-value trading approach that has defined the sector.

Following its UK launch in February 2024, Trampoline reported strong early demand, with over 1,500 units ordered by independent retailers and interior designers in the first few months. The company says the response from customers reflects genuine unmet demand for the kind of curated, quality-guaranteed sourcing experience that larger retailers take for granted.

Anjali Sosale of WaterBridge Ventures highlighted Trampoline's potential to dismantle the longstanding structural barriers — intermediated supply chains, opaque pricing, inconsistent quality — that have kept independent retailers locked out of the best product from emerging markets. Sudipto Sannigrahi of Matrix Partners India cited India's endemic raw materials and craftsmanship, combined with a global design language, as the foundation for a compelling cross-border commerce opportunity at a moment when manufacturing supply chains are actively being diversified away from single-country dependence.

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