One Kings Lane raises $112 million; online company's value nears $1 billion

Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - One Kings Lane, the online home-furnishings company, has raised $112 million, catapulting it into an elite group of venture-backed companies valued in the billion-dollar range. The funding round puts the company's worth at $912 million, according to a spokeswoman for One Kings Lane. The round was led by Mousse Partners, whose chairman Charles Heilbronn would join its board, the spokeswoman said. "TYSM!" meaning "thank you so much," the One Kings Lane Twitter feed responded to a venture capitalist who on Thursday congratulated the company on the funding round. San Francisco-based One Kings Lane, founded in 2009, is taking aim at brick-and-mortar furniture chains such as Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma. It joins other privately backed Silicon Valley businesses whose valuations are hovering around $1 billion or more. They include cloud-based storage services such as Box and Dropbox, online music service Spotify, and online food-delivery service Seamless. Other venture-backed online retailers haven't done as well. ShoeDazzle, a subscription-based service, struggled with a business model and was sold to JustFab last year. Another online retailer, Fab, laid off about 250 staffers last year as its Web traffic fell and it ditched flash sales in favor of a more standard retail model. Current backers of One Kings Lane include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, and Tiger Global Management. It last raised $50 million at the end of 2012. (Reporting by Sarah McBride; Editing by Amanda Kwan)