Co-living spaces provider Zolo has raised $30 million in Series B round of funding, its co-founder and CEO Nikhil Sikri told FE Online. The round was led by IDFC Alternatives, Mirae Asset and existing investor Nexus Venture Partners.
Zolo had last raised Series A ($5 million) funding from Nexus Ventures Partners in December 2016.
The company claims to have grown its bed count of 2,000 beds by 800% to 16,000 beds in the last two years with 157 properties managed by Zolo. “We are targeting 50,000 beds by the end of this year and would expand to 3-4 cities where there is large student population such as Manipal,” said Sikri.
Apart from financing growth in other cities, Sikri said that the new capital will be allocated towards technology including internet-of-things based service offerings. This includes a community engagement product in its app.
“A significant part of the capital will be used towards this community project where users would be able to make payments for let’s say rent, different kind of utility bills etc.,” said Sikri. “We would also be using the money to double our headcount from 300 right now in next 6 months.”
Sikri pegs the market size for co-living in India upwards of $15 billion targeting bachelors and students.
“Co-living is a very large and financially attractive market and we are happy to back Zolo to establish co-living as an asset with their promising solution,” said Gaurav Sharma, partner at IDFC Alternatives.
Sameer Brij Verma, a partner at Nexus Venture Partners, said, “Zolo has registered strong growth in a short span of 3 years and we are confident that their approach and execution can extend across several other markets.”
Zolo currently buys furniture for every property it manages which makes up for 85% of the company’s burn rate. Sikri, without disclosing the amount of monthly burn said that he is working on a leasing model for furniture to bring the burn rate down. The new capital raise, said Sikri, gives the startup a runway for almost 24 months.
Going ahead the growth for Zolo will come from expanding in metro cities and cities dominated by students, said Sikri.
Zolo is currently present in Bengaluru, Chennai, Kota, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, and Pune via two kinds of models – Zolo Standard and Zolo Select.