Polish carpentry startup WOODYDO Raises PLN 1,500,000 from Arkley Brinc VC to Automate and Optimize Furniture Design and Production

Until now, the world of furniture has been divided into three main categories: affordable, flat-pack furniture (mostly IKEA-style, made of MDF), antiques, or real wood, bespoke furniture – hand-made pieces crafted by carpenters. But the latter could take months to be delivered (if you manage to get any response from a carpenter), and it comes at a very high cost.

Enter WOODYDO; a new brand created by Wrocław-based company MTMF sp. z o.o., who specialize in carpentry. They develop digital tools with a customized order flow to automate the  design, production, and delivery of bespoke wooden furniture. By combining innovative IT solutions with modern carpentry techniques, the company provides an end-to-end service, from personalized design, to ordering and payment online, to production with increased quality and speed, and finally delivery to the customer’s door in a significantly reduced time frame compared to traditional bespoke furniture.

Earlier this year, the company successfully raised PLN 1.500,000 investment from Arkley Brinc VC to launch their new venture. One of the founders, Pawel Jakubowski, had been running his own carpentry shop specializing in production of solid wood and fiberboard furniture: “Domowa Stolarnia”. Building the brand over the last 8 years allowed him to analyze several thousands of inquiries, which led him to learn about customer expectations in great detail. What was found was frustration at many problems in the market for bespoke wooden furniture. Customers regularly experienced issues with time delays and poor communication with contractors; in fact, it is estimated that enquiries only receive a 25% response rate, leaving 75% of order requests unfulfilled. In addition, a lot of existing furniture displayed a lack of individuality or poor quality from the use of cheap materials.

WOODYDO is an online platform built to address these issues, optimizing and automating production and processing of semi-finished products for the fastest possible completion, with virtually immediate execution of production thanks to the company’s CNC machine center. The speed and ease of placing an order, supported by full documentation, ensures that the customer receives greater transparency of the order than in the case of individual orders placed with local carpentry shops.

Arkley Brinc VC, a Warsaw-based fund co-created with PFR Ventures, has extensive experience in businesses that carry out manufacturing and production. General Managing Partner Piotr Wasowski remarked:

“We look for opportunities in growing market sectors that are ripe for digitalisation, and would benefit from innovative technology solutions. The furniture industry in Poland surpassed PLN 50 billion in sales in 2019, making up 2.3% of the Polish GDP. Yet until now, the majority of the carpentry workshops are micro-enterprises, not equipped to meet the growing demand from customers. WOODYDO streamlines the whole experience using digital tools and modern methods to deliver exceptional results.”

The design tool is a platform for personalization of furniture, with many parameters to choose from; dimensions, material, colour, finish, bespoke elements and features. The company offers a choice of unique materials, such as black oak and black oak veneer – thus far unprecedented on the carpentry market in Poland. Black oak is a material made of an oak log that has been under water or in the ground for centuries. Studies show ages from 2000 up to 6000 years old. It has been called “a material rarer than diamonds”, and until now has been inaccessible to most due to cost and availability.

Mr Jakubowski, an econometrician and computer scientist by profession, built a community around the Domowa Stolarnia brand, running workshops for woodwork enthusiasts and hobbyists. He runs the company together with Lukasz Lis, who for the past 9 years he has been specializing in the creation and development of startups, having had success managing Doctor Brew and Cleanic Share. The WOODYDO website is now live, with the company now taking its first orders.