Kimball International Acquires Poppin, Creates Omnichannel Commercial Furnishings Design Powerhouse

November 11, 2020  by Jane Chero in Business Strategy, Designer Weekly, Industry   

Headquartered in New York City, Poppin designs fresh and clever commercial-grade furniture that is made to mix, match and scale in today’s modern office and work-from-home environments. Poppin has combined its digitally native platform, with a 17-person salesforce and network of five showrooms to rapidly become one of the industry’s leading disruptors primarily serving small to medium corporations and the direct to consumer market.

Kristie Juster, CEO of Kimball International commented, “The addition of Poppin to the Kimball International family provides us with a meaningful growth engine that aligns with our recently-launched 2.0 Connect Strategy and with our longer term vision to create a leading omnichannel commercial furnishings design powerhouse supported by a robust manufacturing and sourcing infrastructure. The acquisition greatly accelerates the development of our eBusiness platform, and we have identified multiple levers to drive significant revenue synergies.” The Stage One priorities include:

• Scale Poppin’s playbook into secondary markets, where Kimball International has long-standing relationships
• Accelerate work from home and corporate partnerships for Poppin and our Etc. brand
• Launch Poppin privacy pods into Kimball International’s dealer network
• Develop a complementary Poppin Pro Dealer Program

“Additional growth opportunities that we will pursue include expanding Poppin’s vertical expertise and product line in the Health and Hospitality verticals, leveraging Poppin’s industrial design capabilities, and launching new, innovative products together that address the needs of the re-imagined workplace in both office and work from home.”

Juster says by combining Kimball International’s deep industry and operational expertise with Poppin’s scaled, high growth, digitally native and direct platform, they will be uniquely positioned in the evolving commercial furnishings marketplace. “Importantly, Poppin is an excellent cultural fit, bringing a team of highly engaged entrepreneurs with top-notch industrial design and marketing capabilities, whose collaborative approach complements the collegial environment we have at Kimball International.”

Randy Nicolau, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, of Poppin said, “This partnership with Kimball International is an important step toward accelerating our growth and enabling us to further our position as a one-stop solution for inspiring workplaces with well-designed fast and flexible commercial-grade furnishings. Kimball International shares our view of the future of work, which we see as comprised of traditional office environments, satellite offices and work-from-home. We look forward to working together to create uplifting environments that can be accessed through a broad range of channels.”

Poppin will operate as a separate business unit within Kimball International and will continue to be led by Mr. Nicolau and its leadership team.

The acquisition is scheduled to close during the quarter ending December 31, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions.