Mumbai, Nov. 14: Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of the Tata group, has invested an undisclosed amount in online furniture company Urban Ladder, his third personal investment in the segment after Snapdeal and Bluestone.

In July, Urban Ladder had raised Rs 120 crore from Steadview Capital and existing investors SAIF Partners and Kalaari Capital.

Launched in July 2012, Urban Ladder is co-founded by Ashish Goel and Rajiv Srivatsa. It offers over 1,000 products across 25 categories of furniture.

“Tata understands the furniture space very well, specially our focus on product design since he has a lot of knowledge of the subject. His inputs and guidance will be very valuable for us,” Goel, who is the Urban Ladder CEO, said.

The company aims to become the biggest furniture seller in India over the next 18 months. It did not shed any light on the way it would utilise the funds generated from Tata’s investment.

Kalaari had invested $ 1 million in the company in 2012, while SAIF had pumped $5 million into the company last year.

Ratan Tata’s interest is indicative of the growing attractiveness of the e-commerce space. In September, he had invested an undisclosed amount in online jewellery retailer Bluestone. Before that, he made an investment in Snapdeal.

Others e-tailers, too, have been in the thick of action. In July this year, Flipkart had received fresh capital amounting to $1 billion.

There are reports that the Bangalore-based company is set to raise another $1 billion. Last month, Snapdeal received $627 million from Japan’s SoftBank.

Meanwhile, Tata has been appointed to the board of Interpol Foundation to contribute to its two new global initiatives aimed at combating organised crime and terrorist activities by the international police organisation.