Houzz has raised $165 million and is baking a product marketplace into its residential design database.
Consumers visit Houzz to share and browse photos of home designs and projects. Now, the site has beta launched an online store that allows visitors to choose from among 1 million products and materials.
A funding round led by early partner Sequoia Capital is helping Houzz make a push into ecommerce sites, providing the company with a third source of revenue. Houzz currently sells advertising and charges home-service professionals for access to tools that help them engage with visitors.
The latest funding round valued the company at more than $2.3 billion, The Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog reports. It included participation from existing investors Oren Zeev, New Enterprise Associates, GGV Capital, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, plus new investors DST Global and T. Rowe Price.
Younger and smaller competitor Porch is also charging ahead with a searchable database of projects it rolled out last month. Source: blogs.wsj.com.
