Retail giant Future Group has confirmed acquisition of online furniture store FabFurnish. This is the first online acquisition that the Kishore Biyani-led group has made.

• Future Group already has its finger in the home and furnishing business with the HomeTown brand of stores and seems to be taking a step towards an offline-online model.
• FabFurnish, which earlier sold private labels besides promoting merchants on its platform, became a full-fledged marketplace late last year.
• The company also fired almost one-fourth of its workforce.
• Despite an early start in the online furnishing business, FabFurnish succumbed to competition from Pepperfry and Urban Ladder that recently saw funding rounds led by Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital respectively.

For Future Group, the move also means it is upping the ante before Swedish furniture retailing giant IKEA. IKEA’s first store in Hyderabad will be a massive 4 lakh square feet in size and will include all features of a global IKEA store, including restaurant and play and development area.