WhatsOnRent gets angel funding from CommonFloor co-founder, others

Online rental marketplace WhatsOnRent.com, run by Weblevered Technology Pvt Ltd, has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from CommonFloor.com co-founder Lalit Mangal and a bunch of other investors.

Excubator co-founder Neeraj Gupta, angel investor Sanjay Gupta and Bangalore-based software firm Nixel Technology Pvt Ltd also put money in this round, the startup said in a press statement.

WhatsOnRent will use the funding to build tech-enabled processes, hire staff and strengthen its category portfolio.

"I was impressed with the idea of a multi-category marketplace with an asset-light model," Mangal said.

Founded in September 2015 by IIT alumni Sulabh Jain, Shreyans Shrimali and Bharat Goyal, WhatsOnRent allows users to rent products across categories such as home appliances, kitchen appliances, laptops, furniture, treadmill and medical equipment. Jain earlier worked with TinyOwl while Goyal was associated with Appiterate, which was acquired by Flipkart last year. Shrimali worked with Flipkart before starting up.

WhatsOnRent has launched a 'Try-before-you-Buy' programme under which customers can rent latest gadgets for a short duration before deciding to buy.

Currently, the startup fulfils 18-20 orders in a day and claims to have about 500 paying customers. Home appliances, furniture and laptops are its leading rental categories.

WhatsOnRent competes with funded startups such as Rentomojo, Rentomo, Furlenco and FlatFurnish, besides others. "Rentomojo is our direct competitor; other players are operating in niche segments.  WhatsOnRent is a horizontal market player. We have broader categories than rivals," Shrimali told Techcircle.in.

Startups that allow users to rent goods and accessories have been generating a lot of investor interest.

Bangalore-based Rentomo Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs peer-to-peer renting marketplace Rentomo.com, received seed funding of $100,000 (around Rs 67 lakh) earlier this month.

FlatFurnish, a portal that facilitates furniture rentals, raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from former Jabong CEO Arun Chandra Mohan.

In December 2015, Cityfurnish, an online platform for renting furniture, furnishings and appliances, raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Citrus Pay co-founder Jitendra Gupta. In November 2015, Rentomojo raised $2 million in pre-Series A funding from Accel Partners and IDG Ventures India.

CommonFloor competes with News Corp-backed PropTiger.com. News Corp acquired the parent of this news website in March last year.