Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals
Updated Jul 28, 2026
The Essential (formerly Move) is a small, privately held direct-to-consumer furniture and home-goods retailer. It connects customers directly with factories, sells made-to-order products, and aims to remove brand, showroom, distributor, warehouse, and middleman markups. Public sources contain conflicting historical descriptions: the earlier Move business sold broader household essentials and groceries, while the current theessential.com storefront is focused primarily on furniture and home goods.
Primary product
Made-to-order furniture and home goods sold through theessential.com, including beds, tables, chairs, sofas, shelving, lighting, mirrors, rugs, cookware, art, and serveware.
Founded
2018
Headquarters
Oakland, California, United States (current official contact address: 800 East 8th Street, Oakland, CA 94606); older company profiles and YC list San Francisco.
Team size
Approximately 9–11; YC reports 11, while another company-data profile reports 9. LinkedIn describes the company as 1–10 employees.
Industry
Retail / e-commerce
Sub-industry
Direct-to-consumer furniture and home-goods retail; made-to-order factory-direct commerce
Offices
Business model
Stage
Seed / privately held; no reliably confirmed post-seed institutional round. Some databases label an alleged $13M Series A, but this conflicts with other funding records and is not independently confirmed by a primary announcement.
Total raised
$3M
Latest round
Seed VC III / Wefunder crowdfunding (reported inconsistently) · Dec 2020
Latest amount
$585.2K
Jan 2022 · Liquid 2 Ventures
Jan 2021 · WeFunder
Jun 2017
Jun 2017 · Angel Investor Group
Jan 2017
Leadership
Founder & CEO
General Manager
Copywriter / Marketing specialist
Founders
Former co-founder (historical listing; not confirmed current)
Investors
Public company materials emphasize direct relationships with makers, design attribution, honest pricing, fewer layers of packaging and distribution, product quality, and ethical/fair treatment of producers. No reliable public employee handbook or benefits page was found.
Compensation
No reliable public salary bands, equity details, or employee compensation data found. The company had no active YC-listed job openings as of 2026-08-02.
Pricing
Product-by-product retail pricing, with an optional $119/year membership that provides 15% off products and early/reserved access benefits. Free shipping is advertised on orders over $49.
Differentiators
Technology
Customers
Competitors
Estimated revenue
Approximately $1M–$2M annual revenue; GetLatka estimates $1.7M ARR for 2024, but this is a third-party estimate and not a company filing.
Estimated monthly visits
77.9K
Traffic estimate as of Aug 2026
Trustpilot search results contain multiple customer complaints alleging delivery delays, non-delivery, poor responsiveness, and difficulty obtaining resolutions. These are user reviews rather than independently verified findings, but they are a material customer-experience signal.
SourceA Trustpilot reviewer alleged that the company had raised money through crowdfunding, stopped providing investor updates, and changed its name from Move to The Essential. This allegation is not independently verified and should be treated as a risk signal, not a confirmed shutdown or misconduct finding.
SourceThe Essential · Jul 2026
Homepage banner states the company has doubled its catalog and is introducing 300 new pieces shipped from the factory at better prices, indicating a major merchandising expansion.
The Essential · Jul 2026
The company introduced The June Drop, described as the first of its all-new monthly drops, with highly requested replica and viral-inspired designs.
The Essential · Jul 2026
The brand launched a curated expansion beyond furniture into food, health, beauty, bath & body, travel, apparel, and jewelry.
Y Combinator · Jul 2026
YC profile identifies the company as a Winter 2017 batch company founded in 2018 with Chai Mishra as founder/CEO, useful as a milestone reference for company formation and YC affiliation.
The Essential · Jul 2026
The about page details the direct-to-factory model, member benefits, and product-launch cadence, but does not show a formal press newsroom or major acquisition/partnership announcements.