The home design website Houzz recently brought its service to Singapore in a bid to capture a slice of the remodeling market. The company has launched a website and an app dedicated for Singapore. It is the company's third Asia-Pacific venture after Australia and Japan.
Techcrunch reports that Houzz's CEO Adi Tatarko said that the company decided to bring its service to Singapore because it has been performing well there. There are reportedly 150,000 monthly users and 3,000 service providers from the country.
"There are two main criteria we look at when evaluating new markets for Houzz: one is a strong local demand for the Houzz offering and the second is demand from the global Houzz community in a market's design aesthetic and expertise," Tatarko told TechCrunch in an email interview. "Both Japan and Singapore met this criteria."
The site further reports that Houzz tried to localize its services for the Singapore market by adapting the country's language. Along with Sequoia Capital, Houzz "hopes to provide a discussion forum and online bazaar for Singaporeans looking to improve their homes," Straits Times reports.
Houzz dates back to 2009 as a side project for Tatarko and her husband Alon Cohen. After struggling with the renovation of their house, the couple came up with the idea of setting up an online marketplace for remodeling. They started with only 20 projects initially.
Now Houzz reportedly has over 40 million unique monthly users and more than a million home design experts from London to Australia. The company is said to be valued at $2.3 billion in September 2014. Its offices include London, Berlin, Sydney, Moscow and Tokyo. Techcrunch reports that Houzz's next target country is unknown, but India is said to be a "strong potential market."
