Francesc Julià: "Kave Home would have a more Catalan name if we had created the brand now."

Sils (Jungle)Nestled between the AP-7 motorway, the N-II national highway, and the railway line connecting Barcelona and Girona, in a village in the Selva region with fewer than 7,000 inhabitants, lies one of the ten fastest-growing European companies of the last decade: Kave Home. Its formula is quite unique, brimming with differentiating factors. It has become a "growth champion" by being headquartered outside a major city, operating as a 100% family-owned company, and reinventing one of the least modernized economic sectors: furniture. For the past three years, its CEO has been Francesc Julià Ametller (Girona, 1992), son of the founder of Julià Grup. What began with a small warehouse selling mattresses to hotels in Lloret de Mar is now a giant with over a thousand employees, most of them at its headquarters in Sils, having established a mid-range furniture model distinct from Ikea. "Making original, quality design affordable," in Julià's words. The former warehouse has been transformed into a cutting-edge company with hints of start-up More than selling furniture, it sells a concept of "how to live in your home."

Among the rows of tables with a young team from all over the world, the numerous digital meeting rooms for booking, and the recreation areas furnished with the brand's furniture, you can still glimpse what the warehouse was like before the rapid growth of the last decade. In Tordera, Kave Home also has a logistics center. And in Yecla (Murcia), a furniture factory. A reverse path that the family business had vowed never to take, such as also opening physical stores. "We're very good at contradicting ourselves," says Julià, showcasing his "flexibility" and his fight, to the point of "redemption," to "demonstrate that the world can be transformed from rural areas." This is because the company's exports represent more than 70% of its business and it has a presence in 80 countries across five continents. After years of looking outwards, Julià now asserts his "privileged" position in Girona more than ever. "I think Kave Home would have a more Catalan name if we had created the brand now," he explains in a lengthy interview with ARA at the Sils headquarters.

They are located in a small industrial park in a town with fewer than 7,000 inhabitants, between the AP-7 motorway and the railway line. How do you build a global company far from the major cities?

— At first, we almost hid the fact that we're in Sils, but now we see it as a differentiating factor. A potential, something positive. As we're a family business, I think the stigma was greater for the previous generation than for the current one, when there was a stigma associated with being from a small town and a farmer. Now there's a sense of struggle, almost of redemption, of wanting to show that rural areas can transform the world. I think it's a very powerful energy.

Under its CEO, the company has doubled its revenue in three years: from €153 million to €320 million. What made such a leap possible?

— If you do the series from 2014 to 2024, the one that came out in Financial TimesIt turns out we're the tenth fastest-growing company in Europe over the last 10 years. The list came about because we hadn't been notified. When growth isn't the goal, but the consequence, that's when things are done right. And our goal is that, in an increasingly competitive global world, you can't remain stagnant. We're very clear that we need to reach a minimum size to truly have a global impact. So our focus is on growth, on being relevant. And we're also fortunate to be a family business, which means we always have a long-term perspective. We've grown a lot, but we're slowing down our growth.

Why this slowdown in growth?

— We're not a software company: we design products, we have to develop them, industrialize them, manufacture them, provide after-sales service, and offer spare parts. There are complex operations that can only scale at a maximum rate. If we try to bend the system, something will break. So what's the point of bending the rules if what we want is to create a brand that will be around for decades? And we don't have any obsessions, any needs, any partners who want to invest or who are asking me to return. There's a lot of ambition to be relevant, but we're very clear that our culture and way of doing things are non-negotiable.

In 2023, they regained full control of the company. In addition to the advantages of rurality and youth, there was also the unusual family component.

— I think it shows great confidence in the team that the founder wants to reinvest his wealth in the project. Against all the advice of financial analysts, we wanted to put all our eggs in one basket to have 100% control. Today, we're doing things that go against short-term profitability, things related to sustainability and also the reindustrialization of Europe. There's a very stable family protocol in place: we can't sell the company. Because it's more about transmitting values ​​and a way of seeing the world, which we want to take to a large scale. That is, how we believe furniture should be made and how we believe homes should be lived in, and having a platform to do so. To demonstrate that from a town here in Girona, you can change a sector and have a global impact.

The furniture sector has historically been very important in the Girona region. What makes Kave Home different in terms of how we experience our homes?

— We are a fully vertically integrated platform: we handle everything from product design and ideation to the final stage, including service, customer contact, and sales. This creates a virtuous cycle that allows you to have feedback First-hand customer feedback tells you about their habits and needs. We've significantly changed the furniture sales and distribution model. My father always said that buying furniture used to be like going on a weekend getaway. Couples would end up leaving the furniture in the store. It was an archaic sector, with catalogs, little digitization, and sometimes opaque information. That's why we always say that the emotional aspect of the buying process is very important. And that's the driving force behind bringing our products to market: making quality design accessible.

Is Kave Home a mid-range furniture brand, like Zara, somewhere between design and Ikea?

— As has happened in many sectors, the industry has become polarized. A battle is brewing between industrial parks and online players, who copy existing designs with increasingly lower quality, entering a cycle of ever-decreasing prices. On the other hand, there are the original design brands, which have increasingly focused on a more international clientele, from the Middle East or even Asia, rather than the European market. These brands have left a middle segment of the market, traditionally dominated by local manufacturers and sold in neighborhood multi-brand stores, feeling neglected. This has left a customer base adrift, seeking original offerings. This is where we come in, investing in high-quality original design, using materials from the best factories in the world, and with an in-house testing laboratory to guarantee long-term safety. There was a need that already existed, not only here, but in all the countries we've entered in a short time.

And the opposite approach is being taken with digital: reopening physical stores. When did they realize it was necessary?

— Here, we're very good at completely contradicting ourselves. My father always said, when I joined the company 10 years ago, that we would never have factories or stores. Because they're two static elements, with high costs. And the biggest investment we've made in the last 3 or 4 years has been in factories and stores. Not because I contradicted him, but because the world changes so quickly. So your mental framework, your values, and your worldview must be stable, but your tactics must be very flexible. Because what makes sense to you today may not make sense tomorrow. It's very important that the company is always willing to transform itself internally before it's transformed from the outside. You won't control external factors. That said, stores aren't about selling the lowest price, but about providing added value, quality, and comfort. We're not a sector of impulsive purchases, like textiles, and it takes time to reflect, to touch and see.

She talks about a lot of flexibility, as if they were a start-upBut the dimensions are very large.

— This comes largely from my father. I always say I'm following in his footsteps. My father's the one who really thrives on the challenge. And I think we've understood the balance between legacy and values ​​very well. My father has always believed that entrepreneurs are born, and then you have to cultivate that talent. To pay for gas so he could go and sell furniture, he worked weekends as a waiter. Over time, he realized that having a warehouse was key, and he created his small regional distribution company. For 15 years, he sold exclusively in the province of Girona.

Now, how many countries are they coming to and what growth forecast do they have?

Now we have over 80. This year, 2026, we're opening nine new regions and our own stores in Belgium and Portugal, since we were already operating online. We'll also be opening franchises in countries like Iceland, Norway, and Peru. The goal is to reach €400 million in revenue, with our main market outside of Spain being France, followed by Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Australia, where we'll be opening a fourth store.

And how is it perceived from the outside to be from Girona, to claim to be "designed in Girona"? Is it about putting Girona on the map?

— I think it's more about us being true to the land we're from and highlighting the company's origins. In fact, contrary to what marketing analysts and communication gurus say, it's working. There are quite a few people working, from the restaurant industry to sports, to put Girona on the international map. I think we've all been reinforcing this and convincing ourselves that, wow, someone on the other side of the world might know Barcelona, ​​but they can also be perfectly familiar with Girona. And I think that as a region, we need to strengthen our position as well.

Is it difficult to attract talent when you're not based in any European capital?

— When I joined, we had it listed as a weakness in the strategic plan, and now we see it as a strength. Not for financial reasons, but because I believe there are few better places in the world to live in terms of work-life balance. Furthermore, we already have a very interesting and unique project in our industry, the furniture industry, designed to attract people to work with us. People are amazed when you tell them you can live on the Costa Brava and be just a 20-minute drive from the office.

Another distinguishing feature is social media communication. Does Kave Home sell lifestyles?

— We have a sector with low recurring demand. How often do you replace your sofa? This means it's difficult to create a recognized brand. There are already global examples, but it's one of the sectors of retail with fewer brands. What we understood a long time ago is that investing in communication was just as important as controlling the entire design and manufacturing process. That the customer had to understand the brand's values ​​as a way of seeing the world, which they then saw represented in the product. This is where we started looking at the fashion world and how it operated with influencers On Instagram. You analyze the impacts you've had in a day on travel, fashion... and you see that few tell you to buy furniture. Or the ones we've had so far were: buy the cheapest possible furniture.

What separates them from IKEA?

— At Ikea, we have a lot of respect for them because we believe they do things very well; they handle the industrial side very well. But we're separated by quality and the customer experience. [...] Besides, we've internalized buying an expensive jacket every week and changing our mattress every twenty years. We've played it very badly because we spend a third of our lives lying down. The total amount of disposable income people have for furniture has always been less than we believe it should be. There's an advertising debt that we're offsetting with a significant investment in marketing. We always see it as a long-term investment as well.

Kave Home has ultimately acquired Muebles Julià. He will join as CEO in 2023, but when did Kave Home begin and why is it called that?

— Kave Home is a very young brand, barely a decade old. My father registered it in 2014 to accompany a pilot project. Looking back now, the growth to 70 countries has only been possible because we leveraged an industrial foundation. It's called Kave Home because it sounded like a cave, the first dwelling of humankind; my father likes the letter K because it has character. If we had to create the brand now, we would have chosen a more Catalan name, or one that, let's say, had more connotations of where we are.

Did you think you would dedicate yourself to the family business? What is the day-to-day management like?

— I always thought I'd work in the corporate world, but joining the family business was like the 25th option on my list, because I wasn't "the son of." But then there was the option of Kave Home, which was like starting a business within the company, and I liked it. They gave me the space and the trust, and always treated me with the utmost respect. It's been a balance between people with a lot of experience and the young people who have joined in recent years. A very healthy balance.