If you want more than the standard Ikea interior, but do not want to pay thousands of euros, Pabio might be the solution. For a fixed amount per month, the rent-to-own furniture startup of UT alumnus Chowdhary arranges a personalized interior design. ‘Furniture rental companies exist, and so do interior decorators, but no one combines the two, and offers everything completely digitally. That is what we do,’ explains Chowdhary, who graduated the UT's Creative Technology program in 2020.
‘Recently, we raised a pre-seed round of 1 million dollars from top investors,’ says Chowdhary. ‘We also graduated from Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley program that previously funded companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, and Dropbox.’ In this mentoring program experienced entrepreneurs help promising start-ups on their way. ‘It really felt like a dream come true, because the Y Combinator community opens many doors for us.’
Together with his partners, Chowdhary will use the money for growth in Europe. ‘At the moment, we have decorated sixty apartments in Switzerland, where our company is based. Next year, we want to expand to Berlin, and then to other places in Europe.’
