One Kings Lane, a private online shopping site for premium home décor and designers, announced Friday that it has raised $23 million in Series B financing, co-led by existing investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and new investor Greylock Partners. Also participating are existing investors First Round Capital and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, as well as new investors TriplePoint Capital and Google executive Marissa Mayer.
Greylock partner James Slavet joins Bing Gordon of KPCB as observers to the One Kings Lane board of directors. The four board members remain the same: Aileen Lee, partner at KPCB; One King Lane founders Susan Feldman and Alison Pincus, wife of Zynga CEO Mark Pincus; and CEO Doug Mack.
The startup is part of a rising tide of e-commerce sites that require consumers to register to see the site’s offering, an inventory of home décor items with retail prices slashed by as much as 70 percent. Specific categories for One Kings Lane include entertaining and travel, food and wine, and gifts. New sales launch every day in the morning and, though they last for 72 hours, supply is often limited.
This is a very popular space for startups. Gilt Groupe and HauteLook are a couple other companies that offer premium daily deals. Actually, ignoring the fact that One Kings Lane was co-founded by the wife of a successful social gaming CEO, the industry of luxury retail reminds me a lot of social gaming. There's tons of money to be made in the market and, to prove it, it seems like there's a new startup funded all the time.
And no wonder. One Kings Lane says it experienced an “explosive 2010,” with sales up more than 500 percent year over year and more than 75 percent of sales coming from repeat customers. That’s important because anyone can attract new visitors, but building a loyal base is infinitely more rewarding for a company.
One Kings Lane will use the new funding to grow its membership base.
