mumbai, Feb. 6 -- As Indian homeowners become more involved in choosing how their homes look and what goes into them, investors are beginning to back startups that focus not on designing entire interiors, but on helping consumers directly discover and buy materials, bypassing traditional interior designers and full-stack execution firms. Early-stage investors see the materials-led interiors segment as an under-utilized opportunity, estimated at about $14 billion, with rising consumer spend and no market leader. This shift is playing out even as large, late-stage cheques continue to flow into end-to-end interior platforms. Capital is now spreading across different layers of the interiors value chain, with early-stage investors increasingly betting that organizing the materials layer-tiles, laminates, wallpapers and panels-could become a large standalone opportunity. Stellaris Venture Partners, along with Accel, has invested $10 million in a Series A round in Material Depot, a Bengaluru-based platform focused on interior and decorative materials, executives from the firm said in an interview with Mint. "Traditionally, this has been a very unorganised category, run by small family-owned shops. Nobody was solving discovery for the modern Indian consumer," said Manish Reddy, co-founder of Material Depot, on Wednesday. Founded in 2022 by Reddy and co-founder Sarthak Agarwal, the company aims to organize categories such as tiles, laminates, wallpapers and wall panels, among others. Material Depot operates a hybrid model. "Customer acquisition happens online, but conversion happens offline," Reddy said. Material Depot's experience centres typically span about 8,000-10,000 square feet, the company said. The round saw participation from Whiteboard Capital, DeVC, Soma Capital and MyAsiaVC, along with angel investors Livspace founder Ramakant Sharma and Curefoods CEO Ankit Nagori, among others. Fresh capital will be deployed across technology, supply chain expansion and geographic growth. Last year, Mint reported that Infra.Market was stepping up its push into interior materials, home finishing and lifestyle categories such as fitting, finishing and furnishings. Founders Souvik Sengupta and Aditya Sharda told Mint at the time that they expect this segment to scale up to about 40% of revenue over the next few years, from around 30%. Material Depot is also planing to enter Hyderabad over the next three months, followed by expansion into other major metros and tier-I cities. Over the next 12-18 months, it plans to expand to more than 30 experience centres across multiple cities and serve over 50,000 customers. Competition in the broader home interior segment has also been heightening. PharmEasy co-founders Dharmil Sheth, Dhaval Shah and Hardik Dedhia have launched All Home, a brand-building and enablement platform targeting India's fragmented architecture and interior design market. Separately, Singapore-based home decor startup Livspace raised $50 million in internal funding from its parent entity in April last year. Similarly, HomeLane acquired peer Design Cafe and Flipspaces secured $50 million in its Series C round in September last year. Many of these firms are execution-led interior companies that design, plan and deliver finished spaces. Accel partner Pratik Agarwal said the materials-led interiors segment alone represents a large and under-institutionalised market. "This is a roughly $14-billion category with rising consumer spend and no institutional leader."...