Challenging already established cultures is laborious. When it comes to furniture culture, making a market difference is even more difficult.

Despite the progress made within countless industries, the furniture sector has remained innovatively intact. But then, four people eager to revamp the tradition of furniture came along and introduced Tylko on the scene.

Tylko is a next-generation modular storage company that delivers personalized high-quality products.

Benjamin Kuna, Hanna Kokczynska, Jacek Majewski, Michal Piasecki, and Mikolaj Molenda didn’t have the business odds working in their favor.

Here’s how the team of five managed to skyrocket Tylko to recognition and redefine the purpose of furniture in homes across the globe!

Assembling Pieces of a Puzzle

What is the perfect recipe for building a prominent business company? In the case of Tylko - one proficient entrepreneur, two ultra-talented designers, a skilled architect, and a parametric design specialist will do.

Benjamin Kuna finished his Bachelor in Law from the University of Vienna in 2013.

At the time, he was working for Pallas Capital as a business development manager. Besides being a law major and an entrepreneur, Benjamin also speaks three languages: English, German, and Polish.

Hanna Kokczynska, on the other hand, had already got her taste of business. As an industrial and product design major from the University of Warsaw, Hanna co-owns two companies, Super Super - founded in 2007, and Bridge - founded in 2011. The former is a design studio specialized in interior graphics, while Bridge is a company working in the fields of augmented reality and co-design.

Jacek Majewski had earned two professional degrees - one as a Bachelor of Arts and the second in business administration and management. He had studied both practices at the University of Warsaw. Together, Hanna and Jacek co-own both Super Super and Bridge.

From co-founding to filmmaking, Mikolaj Molenda studied at the Poznan University of Technology and earned a Master of Arts and Architecture degree. Mikolaj started his early workdays as a surfer and a filmmaker. Adopting an unusual lifestyle, Mikolaj traveled from Poland to Mexico to film surfers and expanded his filmmaking skills. Later on, Mikolaj would join Hanna and Jacek to co-found Bridge.

Also born and bred in Warsaw, Micheal Piasecki is a computational designer and a lecturer. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in architecture, obtained from the Warsaw University of Technology in 2007. He further pursued a Master’s degree, acquired in 2009, as well as a degree in Adaptive Architecture and Computation from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.

With three inventors already in place and co-founding a business, the team required two more powerful forces to launch Tylko.

The Tylko Concept

The idea of creating Tylko came as a collective brainstorming of five people who were sick and tired of poorly executed furniture. For the lack of a better option, the team began developing a prototype product first and planned on showcasing it at related events and workshops. As three of the inventors already had professional experience with founding Bridge, they wanted Michael to start experimenting with building customized chairs that were going to be used during a festival.

The idea was passed to the festival creators, and they granted them access. The team then reached out to the festival admirers and asked them to customize and buy themselves a chair. That is how they got their first prototypes funded.

However, they had an extremely tight frame - to build the application for customization of the chairs and figure out the whole process of creating them afterward.

However, the insanely rushed project turned into a success, as the customers loved their chairs. So, the business idea behind Tylko was born.

In the early days, the team funded themselves while getting funds only from commercial projects. When the team of the four specialists decided to turn this idea into an actual business, they invited Benjamin, and together they co-founded Tylko.

Tylko was officially founded on February 24, 2014 - a start-up specializing in building customizable storage furniture. What differentiates Tylko from the rest of the companies is the combination of personalized design with the use of the newest technology, allowing customers to build their perfectly fitting furniture via Tylko’s online configurator.

Moreover, Tylko does not only allow easy customization; rather, it also provides the customers a revolutionary AR application. The augmented reality application allows the potential customers to see will their new storage unit be the perfect fit in their home by placing the piece of furniture in the camera’s view.

Tylko’s Business Model

The company had set a clear goal to build eco-sustainable furniture, and by rethinking the standard business model, they created a new approach to the supply-demand chain. Rather than supplying materials beforehand and wasting energy and funds for warehouses, their supply is directly dictated by the demand.

This approach turned out to be an obstacle for Tylko. Even though Tylko’s customized models required the same tools to be built, most factories only recognized mass demand as an approach. Thus, the team had a hard time trying to convince the factories of their new approach, and in the beginning, they managed to convince only one.

But that one factory was enough for Tylko to keep growing.

Tylco’s Business Model Today

Any customer can build and adjust the storage units by their needs without having any technical knowledge. Tylko’s automated process sends the building manual for the customized product directly to the closest manufacturer as soon as the order is placed. However, the search for factories was not the only challenge the team encountered.

Building customizable high-quality products can be quite pricy, and the Polish standard is not at its peak. Therefore, the Tylko team decided to further expand their company by acquiring many factories as their business partners around Europe, where the demand was significantly higher.

The idea behind having multiple factories is to minimize the distance that the furniture has to travel from the factory to its owner. By doing so, Tylko managed to reduce the damage to the environment. However, such functional operation is known to be costly. So, how does Tylko get funded?

Tylko Today

Tylko has had a total of 5 funding rounds and 13 investors. The first funding round was through Seed Round, and with four investors, they managed to acquire 1.3 million euros.

During the second round of Series A Funding, they acquired 3 million euros from 5 investors.

Their latest funding round was held on March 23, 2021, through Series C, from which they raised a total of 22 million euros. Tylko has raised a total of 33.3M euros through funding rounds.

Tylko’s Future Plans

Tylko’s team has revolutionized each step of the furniture buying process.

Their workflow appears to be seamless: from customization to building, to shipping, and to the buyers assembling the furniture with ease – just like building origami.

Tylko is a company that targets everybody that wishes to have a piece of furniture that stands out. While most businesses suffered due to the situation of the global pandemic caused by Covid-19, the year 2020 exceeded Tylko’s expectations. According to their financial records, the worldwide shift to online commerce almost tripled their sales. Moreover, the number of customers throughout Europe had also increased.

As of today, Tylko has served more than 60.000 satisfied customers across the globe, and with 120 employees, their plan is to keep expanding. Compared with its competitors, Tylko remains unmatched, becoming the only technology-supported and eco-sustainable furniture company. Built to last and assembled as easy as one-two-three, the Tylko furniture experience combines form and function in one ultra-cozy concept. With a catalogue of personalized furniture pieces, Tylko ensures every buyer finds their perfect fit and style!

Their next step is to expand worldwide.

Will they succeed? Yes - if we take their idea that everyone deserves their own style!