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Carl Prindle is one of those people who believe we’re in the midst of a Web renaissance, a moment at which companies are finally figuring out how to actually deliver on the carbonated promises of the bubble years. His company, Waltham-based Furniture.com, was an emblematic late-1990s start-up: Backed with more than $100 million in venture capital, the online retailer lost about $900 on every order. The company tried and failed to go public in 2000 and then abruptly declared bankruptcy in November of that year.

Prindle, who had been senior vice president of product development, spent $1 million buying some of the defunct company’s assets.

He relaunched Furniture.com in 2002, as an online storefront for traditional furniture retailers. Instead of managing its own inventory and spending wildly to build its own brand, the new Furniture.com would simply serve as an e-commerce storefront, funneling orders to partners such as Levitz Furniture, and taking a small percentage of each transaction. (Prindle says the fee is ‘’in the teens.”)

The old Furniture.com had 250 employees; the new incarnation, just 20. The company is profitable now, and sales are growing 20 percent a month, Prindle says.

Last week, Furniture.com was named one of the top 50 online retailing sites by Internet Retailer.

Scott Kirsner is a contributing editor at Fast Company. He can be reached at kirsner@pobox.com.