Interior Designer

Launched in the thick of the pandemic, The Expert brought virtual consultations to high-end design (C) Adobe Stock / Milan Havenly acquires The Expert. Since 2022, Havenly has been on something of a buying spree, snapping up five furniture and decor brands in under four years. Now, the company moves into a new category with another deal: an agreement to acquire design platform The Expert in an all-equity transaction. Terms were not disclosed. The acquisition was set into motion late last year, when Havenly CEO Lee Mayer met The Expert's CEO, Lee Anne Blake, through a professional connection. The two hit it off, and quickly began exploring a deal. "It was clear that we had complementary offerings - they had things we couldn't do on our own, and we had things they couldn't do on their own," Mayer tells Business of Home. "We realized we'd be more together than apart." Following completion of the transaction, Blake will join Havenly as chief commercial officer. Most of The Expert's staff will remain on board, but a few roles will be eliminated in the merger. "Havenly has already built a lot of the things we would have needed to build on our own in order to grow: They have a technology platform; they have a large logistics team," says Blake. "This is an accelerator." The deal unites two companies that have followed a strikingly similar path. Havenly, founded in 2014 as an e-design service, has grown into a digital-first conglomerate - it owns furniture and decor brands The Inside, Interior Define, The Citizenry, St. Frank and Burrow - mostly focused on selling product. The Expert, which was launched during Covid as a video consultation platform for top designers, now derives the majority of its revenue from its trade-oriented online marketplace. Both began with design services and pivoted to commerce. The difference is audience: Havenly built scale targeting consumers, while The Expert built cachet working with high-end designers. The acquisition is a bid to combine them into something greater than the sum of its parts. On February 18, SEO expert Maggie Swift demystifies Google Analytics and demonstrates how designers can move beyond surface-level metrics to uncover insights that meaningfully impact visibility, leads and revenue. Click h ere to learn more and remember, workshops are free for BOH Insiders. The Expert will remain a stand-alone website, but in the months ahead, Mayer is planning to bring some of Havenly's technology - including a sourcing chatbot - to the design platform's trade portal, with the goal of strengthening the site's purchasing tools. Over time, the aim is to build a robust procurement system, something akin to project management software. The thesis is simple: Make it easy for designers to shop on The Expert, and more designers will shop on The Expert. "For a lot of trade vendors, you don't have an easy way to find availability, price and customization information, so even having that would be really powerful," says Mayer. "On top of that, there's visualization - we have a lot of 3D software. There's a lot we can combine to offer for designers." Mayer also sees the benefits of this newfound proximity to the trade flowing the other way as well. "We have a nice, growing trade business on the Havenly brands side: Designers are buying from Interior Define and The Citizenry and St. Frank," she says. "One of the things we're interested in is getting more integrated with more of the trade." Another possible crossover: Using Havenly's network of vendors to produce capsule collections for The Expert designers. Both Mayer and Blake emphasize the importance of preserving The Expert's brand - there is a delicacy in bringing together one company that operates in the upper echelons of the trade with another that targets a broader consumer base. However, they believe the benefits outweigh the risks. "I hope people will see that by joining forces, we'll be able to build tools that make everyone's businesses more efficient," says Blake. "At the end of the day, for our experts, our vendors and our trade firms, money talks. There's going to be some chatter, and people may say negative things, but I hope in a year people will say, 'Oh, that's been so good for my business.'" Going forward, the acquisition - Havenly's first since picking up Burrow in late 2024 - could signal a potential new area of focus. "One of the things we've been thinking about is: Can we own all things digital home? Not just consumer-facing home, but trade-facing home," says Mayer. "Last year, from a consumer perspective, was fine; we grew double digits. But we grew far more on the trade side, which was eye-opening. We have all these things to offer to the trade - there's got to be a way that we can embrace that community, provide them modern tools and software, and bring them into the portfolio in a different way." "I don't know that [this deal] changes our perspective that we're a house of brands," she adds. "I think it just embraces a different consumer for our house of brands." Want to stay informed? Sign up for our newsletter, which recaps the week's stories, and get in-depth industry news and analysis each quarter by subscribing to our print magazine. Join BOH Insider for discounts, workshops and access to special events such as the Future of Home conference.

Online home furnishings brand The Citizenry has joined the Havenly family of brands, which include Interior Define and The Inside.