Why did TPlusA acquire FineMakke (formerly Finemake)? The answer lies not in size, but in a business model that could help modular furniture entrepreneurs scale while strengthening TPlusA’s long-term strategy.
The TPlusA FineMakke acquisition wasn’t simply about acquiring a modular furniture company. It was bringing in a business that had spent nearly a decade developing the systems and capabilities that help modular furniture businesses scale.
“The first motivation for me was to be an entrepreneur. When we looked at the modular furniture industry in 2015, we felt there was enough opportunity to contribute and build something meaningful,” recalls Samba Chava, Co-founder, FineMakke.
Founded in 2015 by Chava and Rajasekhar Nallu, FineMakke began as a business-to-consumer (B2C) modular furniture company designing and delivering modular kitchens and wardrobes directly to homeowners. Having worked with Hettich and Samsung respectively, the founders recognised an opportunity at a time when organised players in the sector were still few. Backed by their own capital, they set out to build the business from the ground up.
Operating from a modest 150–200 sq ft office, FineMakke adopted an asset-light model. Instead of investing in its own factory, it focused on design, customer acquisition and project execution while outsourcing manufacturing to partner facilities. This kept capital requirements low and allowed the founders to concentrate on building the business and understanding the market.
To meet customers and showcase its offerings, the founders initially operated out of an industry partner’s experience centre before eventually establishing one of their own. But as the business grew, so did their understanding of the industry. They realised the bigger
opportunity lay not in building another modular furniture brand, but in creating the systems that would help architects, dealers and entrepreneurs build successful modular furniture businesses.
That realisation transformed FineMakke from a consumer-facing furniture company into a business that enabled others to design, manufacture and deliver modular furniture more efficiently. Years later, those capabilities would justify the TPlusA FineMakke acquisition.
Building the Infrastructure Entrepreneurs Needed
After nearly five years as a consumer-facing modular furniture company, FineMakke had gained first-hand insight into how the industry worked. While executing projects, the founders repeatedly encountered the same bottlenecks—shortages of skilled designers, costly drawing errors and limited access to factories equipped with advanced machinery. Over time, they realised these were not unique to FineMakke but reflected wider gaps across the industry. “Throughout this journey, we kept analysing them and realised that the ecosystem that existed at that point wasn’t supporting entrepreneurs to have a successful business journey,” recalls Chava.
The Covid-19 pandemic gave the founders the opportunity to step back and fundamentally rethink the business. “During the pandemic, we had an opportunity to go back to the drawing table and think deeply about what we were doing. How else can we contribute to this industry? That’s where all our observations and learnings as a B2C company came into play,” he says.
Instead of returning to business as usual, the founders decided to solve the industry’s problems rather than their own. Their ambition shifted from building a modular furniture brand to creating systems that would help others build successful modular furniture businesses. “We chose to build the infrastructure for India’s modular furniture industry. When I say infrastructure, it’s not just the factory,” says Chava.
FineMakke’s new model no longer focused on serving homeowners directly. Instead, it began working exclusively with architects, dealers and furniture businesses, building the manufacturing, technology and supply-chain support they needed to execute projects more efficiently. “We don’t serve end customers. We only empower and enable dealers and architects to service the customer well,” says Chava.
Building a B2B Platform
The pivot to a B2B model required FineMakke to build capabilities that most modular furniture businesses lacked—from digital workflows and manufacturing support to procurement and project execution.
One of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks lies between design approval and manufacturing. Converting a customer’s approved design into production drawings and shop-floor documentation traditionally required significant manual effort and specialist expertise.
To simplify this process, FineMakke adopted a Design-to-Manufacturing (D2M) workflow that digitally connects design with production, reducing errors, improving visibility and shortening turnaround times.
“In the last one year, it has really helped this industry a lot. We are able to generate the same output with about 20–25% of the earlier manpower,” says Chava, adding that artificial intelligence is also simplifying design rendering and the preparation of production and shop-floor drawings.
FineMakke’s proposition extended well beyond technology. It also sought to lower the barriers for dealers selling plywood, hardware and other building materials to enter the modular furniture business without investing in their own manufacturing facilities.
The company supplies ready-to-assemble modular components—including carcasses, shutters, drawer fronts and other cabinetry elements—while also providing design support, manufacturing, procurement and order fulfilment. This enables channel partners to offer
complete modular kitchen and wardrobe solutions, enabling them to move beyond selling individual products.
“We are creating an opportunity for them to sell a value-added product rather than a commodity product,” says Chava. According to him, the model has helped establish more than 50 dealer showrooms over the past four years. Many channel partners have expanded from selling plywood and hardware to operating dedicated modular furniture businesses, with second-generation entrepreneurs increasingly adopting the model.
To further reduce the investment required to build a modular furniture business, FineMakke established 7,500 sq ft experience centres in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Rather than serving only as company showrooms, these facilities function as shared sales infrastructure where
architects and dealers can bring customers, showcase complete modular furniture solutions, conduct meetings and finalise projects without investing in their own display spaces.
“They are most welcome to come along with their customers to the showroom. We have about a 7,500 sq ft showroom in Bengaluru and another one in Hyderabad. They can showcase the entire product line, conduct their meetings from here and do the business. This is where we brought in that ease of doing business,” says Chava.
FineMakke has also standardised modular furniture components by maintaining ready inventory of carcasses in multiple sizes. Instead of manufacturing every project from scratch, dealers can procure standard modules off the shelf, reducing lead times and making execution faster and more predictable.
The company now plans to expand its experience-centre network beyond Bengaluru and Hyderabad while exploring a franchise-led B2B model, with Kolkata among the first markets under consideration. A new experience centre is also planned in Mumbai—extending a business model that aims to make modular furniture entrepreneurship easier to replicate across India.
Capital for Growth
Building manufacturing capabilities, integrating technology with production, strengthening procurement and establishing experience centres required far greater investment than the founders could deploy on their own.
To support this transition, the company raised growth capital in 2022 from Madhumala Investments. The funding helped FineMakke accelerate the development of its business model and invest in the capabilities needed to scale it.
Instead of pursuing rapid expansion, the company focused on refining its operating model—investing in technology, strengthening manufacturing and building a proposition that enabled channel partners to offer complete modular furniture solutions with lower investment and faster execution.
The approach mirrors a broader philosophy articulated by TPlusA founder A K Goel in an earlier interaction at India Kitchen Congress, where he argued that long-term investment follows businesses that build differentiated capabilities rather than simply chasing scale.
A Strategic Fit
By the time TPlusA began evaluating FineMakke, the latter had evolved into far more than a modular furniture company. It had built capabilities across manufacturing, procurement, technology and dealer enablement—areas that complemented TPlusA’s vision of creating an
integrated platform for the furniture industry—making the two companies a natural strategic fit.
The TPlusA FineMakke acquisition was driven by two clear objectives: helping its business partners become more profitable and delivering greater value to end customers. FineMakke’s standardised modular components enabled dealers to expand beyond selling traditional building materials, while allowing carpenters to procure ready-made carcasses that reduced installation time, improved margins and lowered costs for customers.
For Chava, the transaction was never about an exit. “I call it an acqui-hire,” he says, explaining that the objective was to combine complementary capabilities while preserving the entrepreneurial spirit that had built FineMakke over the previous decade.
Unlike a conventional acquisition where the founders step away, both Chava and his co-founder Rajasekhar Nallu continue to lead the business, bringing their technology, manufacturing and operational expertise into the combined organisation.
The partnership also formalised a relationship that had existed for years. Chava acknowledges that TPlusA founder A K Goel had mentored the founders from the company’s early days, helping shape its strategic direction as the business evolved. The integration, therefore, was the culmination of a long professional association rather than the beginning of a new one.
For Chava, the TPlusA FineMakke acquisition marks the beginning of a new chapter rather than the end of one. The founders continue to lead the business, while the model they spent nearly a decade building now has the opportunity to reach a much wider market through TPlusA’s distribution network and industry relationships.
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