Bengaluru-based co-living startup Grexter has raised $1.5 million (Rs 10.6 crore) in a Pre-Series A funding round from Venture Catalysts. The startup will use the funds for to grow inventory as well as to ramp up its technology architecture.
Others who participated in the round were Arisht Jain of Samyakth Group, Vikas Bohra, Vishal Shah, founder of Rapid Retail, and developers, HNIs, real estate professionals, family offices, private equity funds, wealth management companies and others.
Launched in 2016 by Pratul Gupta and Nikhil Dosi, Grexter is a tech-based rental accommodation providing platform for students and young professionals in the country. It provides state of the art, fully furnished co-living spaces while eliminating problems such as hefty brokerage fees, low-quality homes, sky-high rents and deposits, and picky homeowners.
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Pratul Gupta and Nikhil Dosi are IIT-Madras alumni. Pratul was an investment banker with Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank and has worked with a venture capital fund called Acumen. Nikhil has worked in Reliance Industries and has also been the Operations Head of Gopigeon, a NEXUS-funded logistics startup.
The startup currently has over 1500 beds across Bengaluru and plans to significantly increase that number in the near future.
Pratul Gupta, Founder, Grexter said, “Having bootstrapped the venture, we’ve climbed our way up firefighting and understanding every use case scenario possible. We are confident that with the mentorship and the influx of funds from Venture Catalysts we’d be able to accelerate the growth of Grexter and invigorate our tech platform as well. We envision to scale up rapidly and accommodate over 5000 beds by the end of 2019.”
Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and President of Venture Catalysts shared that the rental accommodation sphere caters to one of the most basic needs of consumers yet it continues to be highly fragmented and plagued with key problems pertaining to quality, transparency and high brokerage fees.
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Venture Catalysts is India’s first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1 Million in early stage startups that have the potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time.
Venture Catalysts brings a combination of capital, mentoring and business network to help investee companies to succeed.
A notable player in this space ZoloStays raised $30 million from Nexus Venture Partners and IDFC Alternatives earlier this week.
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In December 2018, another co-living startup StayAbode announced a project in partnership with CP Developers in the heart of Bengaluru’s Whitefield.
“However, the next wave of growth is likely to come from models that are significantly different, which would focus on building much larger establishments that are tech-enabled and close to major demand hubs. Such models driven by well-funded players would enable strong economies of scale along with consistent consumer experience,” the report added.