Colive, a technology-driven co-living space provider has raised US$9.2 million (Rs.63 crore) in a Series A funding round from Salarpuria Sattva Group. Colive provides fully managed rental homes for young working professionals and couples. The Bangalore-based company will utilize the funding to scale up its operations from 12,000 beds to 1 lakh beds over the next two years. In addition, it also looks forward to expand its presence in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.
Colive’s Founder and CEO, Suresh Rangarajan has said the company is depending on technology to provide top-class amenities to its customers, a majority of whom are youngsters working in the IT hubs and mostly single. There are couples as well. The company calls them millennials and Gen Z.
“At Colive, members can enjoy all the modern features coupled with tech enabled video surveillance based security without having to break the bank. Working professionals and young couples can upgrade their lifestyle and make living an experience with Colive and meet like-minded people in the community making it a total fun place to live! Thanks to our latest funding and with the support of Salarpuria Sattva Group, we now have more firepower to turn Colive into an entirely full-stack, tech-driven platform. Moreover, we plan to invest in the build-to suit model inventory for co-living purposes,” he added.
Affordability is another USP Colive claims it offers its customers, since these co-living spaces offer value for money facilities and features in all their properties. While the company has had to make do with existing properties and modify them to suit their requirements, they have plans to build co-living spaces anew, taking care of the specific needs within their business model.
Sharing his insight, Bijay Agarwal, MD Salarpuria Sattva Group commented, “We believe Coliving is going to be next big wave in India which will alter the real estate landscape in tier I cities specifically IT hubs. Nowadays, millennials move from one city to another and within city also and with each move, they have to worry about finding and setting up a place to reside in. Coliving provide a huge respite to them along with community living, safety and additional services. We foresee ourselves in developing built-to suit real estate which will specifically cater to Coliving requirements and we also expect Coliving will generate stable rental income over a period of time.
The kind of co-living and community type lifestyle may be new to the country but it is a model available in many developed economies.
Salapuria is already in the real estate business and could be the partners for Colive for building the units it plans to introduce.