editor:Jessie

　　BOSTON ― A new furniture brand called Greycork looks to take on home furnishings giant Ikea in the online realm for affordable RTA goods, utilizing a crowd-funding effort launched Monday on Indiegogo.

　 　“We started Greycork to create a refreshing furniture option tailored for today’s modern user,” said co-founder John Humphrey via e-mail. “Our founders’ backgrounds blend a manufacturing legacy with (Rhode Island School of Design) design (capability), and we have created a new line of furniture that serves as a better alternative to Ikea: Products assemble in minutes with no tools, are more durable, are priced the same or less, and are better designed.”

　 　According to its website, Greycork was founded with the goal of creating a furniture option tailored for today’s consumer. The founders’ backgrounds blend Humphrey’s manufacturing legacy ― he grew up working in a Massachusetts plant ― with recent Rhode Island design graduates Alec Babala and Myung Chul Kim.

　　The Indiegogo crowd-funding effort runs until Sept. 19.

　 　“Greycork is a brand that plans to grow sales by investing in a simple, pleasant online shopping platform and coupling its digital presence with a lightweight physical presence to showcase product and engage with our users in unique ways,” Humphrey said about the company’s strategy via e-mail.

　　Greycork calls its target customer the “modern user” versus simply Millennial, he added.

　 　“This user sees furniture as a part of his or her identity,” Humphrey said. “She values aesthetics, quality and price, but also has a special set of needs around convenience and transportability. Our product is designed specifically for the modern lifestyle, because we offer great design at a very low price and the added benefits of one- to five-day free shipping, no-tools-assembly in under five minutes, and easy transportability from one home to the next.

　 　To make this proposition stronger, Greycork is “building a brand that deliberately follows a set of values and aims to improve our world by strengthening the bond between our peers and the manufacturing sector,” Humphrey added. “Our mission is to make it easier to move, while bridging the gap between modern culture and manufacturing. It’s authentic to who we are, and we hope people will admire that.”

　　(furniture today)