Apurva Salarpuria takes on advisory role with Design Cafe

Design Café, the online interior design + build company, announced today that Apurva Salarpuria, Executive Director, Salarpuria Sattva Group will now join them as an advisory board member. Salarpuria, who has previously been one of the investors in the Bangalore-based start-up, brings on board his decade-long experience in the real estate industry. This move is in line with Design Café's strategy to continue strengthening its existing operations as well as focus on expanding its scale over the next 12-15 months.

Commenting on the development, Shezaan Bhojani, CEO-Design Café said "We are delighted to have Apurva on board. His experience will be invaluable to our team. His expertise in working and investing in other successful start-ups and building a large business himself as well as in-depth knowledge of the industry will play a key role in shaping our vision as we step up the scale of our operations.

Salarpuria, a Chartered Accountant by qualification, started his career with KPMG in Bangalore. In 2005, he joined the Salarpuria Sattva Group as the Executive Director. Salarpuria Sattva Group is one of the key players in India's burgeoning real-estate market as well as a developer of many IT parks. Salarpuria is also a keen investor in start-ups and has made several key investments in many popular consumer brands. He is also a co-founder and president elect of the Calcutta Angel Network.

Commenting on his new role, Salarpuria said, " I truly believe that interiors are a big pain point in the Indian residential real estate industry and its high time that we address this issue. The Design Café team is passionate about solving this problem and has created an interesting business model around it. Over the last couple of years, as I got to know Shezaan Bhojani and Gita Ramanan, I could see their driving passion and ethics which was impressive. This increased my comfort factor and I wanted to not only participate again as an investor, but also to take up the additional role of an advisor with them and help them achieve their set goals.

He also added, “Design Café is one of the few start-ups, which have continued to spend frugally even after raising money. If you place their numbers against some of their competitors, it’s quite amazing that they are hand in hand on top-line with them with a fraction of the fund raise and a fraction of their cash burn. This is something that truly sets this team apart. Their personal sincerity and work ethics has been a huge influence on the overall company ethos and I am keen to add my expertise to it so that I can work with them on their next big challenge and prove this model on a multi-city level.”