Ashimara Housing Pvt Ltd, which operates Your-Space, a student housing company, has raised $10 million (around Rs 75 crore) in a Series A funding round led by the Shantanu Rastogi, Managing Director of personal investment firm General Atlantic, and Ajay Gupta of Capital Foods’ family office, the company said.
The round also saw participation from AJAX Capital, Holy Basil Consultancy Pvt Ltd, Manish Choksi’s family office, Sunidhi Group’s family office, and Sanjaya Gupta amongst others.
The company said it will use these funds for growth, with a focus on metros and tier I cities. They will also be enhancing operations, and part of the funds will be used to strengthen and retain the core team, which has recently seen additions like the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Head of Community and Head - Legal and Compliance.
"The funds will help us deepen our presence in a competitive, crowded market. It gives us the firepower to continue delivering global service standards at scale,” said Shubha Lal, Co-founder and COO Your-Space.
The company currently has over 7000 operational beds in nine cities. Your-Space aims to have more than 20,000 beds by July 2022 for the coming 2022-2023 academic year, it said.
“There is a significant unmet need for safe, comfortable, convenient and affordable lodging and community spaces for over 30 million migrant undergrad and post-grad students in India. India is one of the largest suppliers of skilled talent across engineering, medicine, law, finance and several other professions to the world, needs high-quality student housing operators to address this large and growing demand alongside high-quality universities and institutions,” said Shantanu Rastogi.
A slew of student housing-focused startups have gained investor interest in recent times. Homversity, an accommodation platform focused on college students, raised $155,000 (around Rs 1.15 crore) in a round led by fundraising platform Shuru-Up, and a consortium of syndicates including Growth-Sense, ValCreators, BeyPar Innovations LLP and Mercury Angel Investors.
Meanwhile, managed accommodation provider Settl has raised $500,000 (Rs 3.72 crore) in a Seed round from We Founder Circle and ah! Ventures.