When the phrase "spatial computing" first appeared at the launch of Apple's Vision Pro headsets by Tim Cook, Kenny Du, Founder and CEO of Homee.ai, could not help feeling a sense of pride. "We have nailed the problem for the home furnishing industry and consumers by constructing the AI infrastructure for them," Du told DIGITIMES Asia with an ear-to-ear smile on his face in an interview recently.
Homee.ai, the AI-as-a-service platform startup that provides artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transformation tools to home furnishing industry companies worldwide, was mentioned in Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote speech at Computex 2023.
It is selected by the Nvidia Inception Program, which provides resources for startups that need Nvidia's computing power for their AI training process. Little do many people know that Homee.ai not only is an AI-as-a-Service company but also has established an e-commerce marketplace for furniture and household items.
Kenny Du started this journey in 2017 when he created his company after getting his MBA from a German university. He had to furnish hundreds of units in a huge residential project in Shanghai. "The traditional way of decorating a new home is just too time-consuming and inefficient. Imagine if the furniture you choose does not fit the space you wanted to put it in!" Du said. "So I started to pore through research papers on related technologies, sourcing the right people and resources to get the job done."
He was trying to figure out how to let as many people as possible choose the furniture for their homes that are different in spatial designs and dimensions. How could he help them cut the inconvenience of having to measure the space themselves? How could they immediately see whether the selected furniture matches the tone and style of their space?
The technologies back then were not ready for his ambitious goal. There was no camera to take 3D photos, and memory size was only 256 megabits. People knew nothing about spatial computing in 2017-2018. "Virtual reality was all the rage back then, and artificial intelligence (AI) was not even a popular word," Du admitted that in the beginning, he hired a research and development team to build the infrastructure, but nothing came out of that project. He was not daunted by the failure. He knew the rewards would be huge if he gets it right to create a useful tool for the global home deco market, which enjoys more than US$650 billion in sales each year. Every family has a solid need for home furnishing which has not been digitized yet.
Du started building his own team from the ground up, one person at a time. Amanda Ye, the company's chief operating officer (COO), learned about Du's ambitious plan 5 years ago but felt there were insufficient resources to support the team back then. "I thought the goal probably will take more than 10 years to achieve if it manages to survive," chuckled Ye. However, what Du and his team have accomplished since 2017 really amazed her, and she eventually joined the company in 2023.
Building AI as infrastructure with Nvidia
Spatial computing is just the first step. Homee.ai also applied generative AI to its application. "After scanning an apartment space, users can try putting different pieces of furniture in the augmented reality and see which one fits better," Du demonstrated how it works on his iPhone. "When you remove the sofa, the generative AI automatically generates the floor area under the sofa."
After developing a platform that links a furniture marketplace and provides home furnishing companies with marketing and operating tools, Homee.ai eventually got noticed by Nvidia, which was searching for AI startups to build an ecosystem.
Nvidia wasted no time to get the ball rolling. "Two or three hours after our discussion, Nvidia's HQ immediately sent term sheets over. In two days we completed all the documentation and started collaboration," said Du.
Du compared Nvidia to a powerful fleet. "It's like we now have an aircraft carrier right outside the window, because everything is in the cloud." Homee.ai needs computing power to build many 3D models and to do spatial identifications. "Nvidia is a hardware provider, by helping startups to grow, they also get to grow demands for the computing power that feeds on their chips, that's what I presume," said Du.
Du made another analogy. "Nvidia is like the builder of the engine, and we build the car; our collaboration is to sell this car, the AI solution, and build a highway to the home deco companies which cannot build their own AI but would like to have AI do wonderful tasks for them."
Digital transformation tool for home deco industry
Homee.ai already has nearly 1,000 home furnishing firms and furniture brands around the world adopting their solutions. "I believe more than 90% of the companies want to do digital transformation, but they run into all kinds of challenges," said Du. "Homee.ai allows them to achieve the goal with ease, helping them to serve their customers to buy furniture on their mobile devices, simply a magical experience."
Users scan the room, get a 3D picture of the space with furniture sitting where they are, and they can remove it or change its location on the app by a click or a drag. The amazing thing is, the floor is paved automatically after the furniture is removed or relocated. The app also allows users to choose from a collection of new items available on the marketplace and check whether the size and color fit the deco. They can purchase the furniture and have it shipped through the e-commerce marketplace of the app.
The smooth workflow significantly decreased customers' time spent on the entire furniture purchase journey from days, if not weeks, to just a few minutes. "Just like what Jensen said in his Computex keynote, this feels like riding a time machine, while cutting lots of carbon footprints," Du said.
The app actually involves several AI applications at the same time. For example, there is an AI for image identification, a generative AI for image, a 3D spatial computing model, and a large-language model (LLM) based on designer jargon and a language database operating all at the same time when a user uses the Homee.ai app, Du explained.
Furniture companies that would like to have this convenient app for their own website can subscribe to Homee.ai service and get a customized API. It not only provides home deco company customers with a spatial design tool but also links them up with ERP software and logistics networks to automate their operations. The more people use the AI, the better the system will be, as the AI will learn from each experience. The AI-as-a-Service is an infrastructure now available on a subscription basis but will be charging customers by the unit of computing power they use in the future.
HOMEE also has its own marketplace platform and logistic system, forming an ecosystem with a supply chain of nearly 1,000 furniture manufacturers and retailers all over the world. "Some of them are in China, some are in Malaysia, and we also have partners in the United States and Germany providing high-quality products," Du said HOMEE is also applying for ISO carbon-neutral certifications.
With a team of 50 people, Homee.ai expects to double the workforce by December this year. Since it has already started generating revenues, Homee.ai has no plan to do funding rounds because they are not short of money but does have a plan for IPO in the near future. "We are open to seeking out strategic partners that have complementary strengths to help us expand in global markets," said Du.
Kenny Du, Homee.ai CEO & founder
