Isthara Secures $10 Mn To Offer More Coliving Spaces, Smart Food Courts

Coliving startup Isthara has secured $10 Mn (INR 81 Cr) in its Pre-Series B funding round led by Dubai-based Eagle Investments.

Isthara will use the funds to foray into business-to-consumer (B2C) retail food court segment space and expand its presence in the coliving segment. In addition, it will deploy funds to double its bed capacity to 50,000 beds in coliving and student accommodation segments by 2025. 

With the current fundraising, Isthara has raised a total of nearly $21 Mn funding to date, as shared by the startup. 

“With a rise in safety and hygiene concerns since the pandemic, we are seeing a fundamental shift as customers are increasingly opting for tech-enabled and safety-focused coliving and food options. With its unique business model, Isthara is poised to disrupt the coliving and retail food court segment,” Elias Kawar, managing director of Eagle Investments said.

Founded in 2017 by Gilbert James and Vijayan Krishna Kumar, Isthara offers coliving spaces, smart food courts, and cafeterias services to working professionals and students. It claims to manage over 24K beds across Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, and Chennai. 

Isthara said that it also operates smart food courts which digitises conventional food courts and cafeterias in corporate and colleges thus, making them easier to manage. 

“The funding that we have raised will enable us to build on our B2C portfolio, aggressively scale our operations across the retail food court market, and be a market leader in the segment. We will also look to strategically expand our coliving presence across the country, and continue to disrupt the space by enhancing our tech-enabled coliving solutions,” said Gilbert James, promoter and managing director of Isthara.

Per the startup, Isthara is presently managing over 50 food courts across Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. So far, it has delivered services to over 200,000 people. It aims to grow its revenue by 10x in the next three years.

In January 2022, Isthara acquired software product engineering startup Letsmobility to digitise operations and build tech solutions for coliving and food court segments. In September 2021, it secured an undisclosed amount of funding from JM Financial Private Equity, Eagle Proprietary Investments and some family offices. 

Further, in 2019, it secured $5.7 Mn (INR 40 Cr) funding from JM Financial India Fund II.

In the coliving space, it faces competition from the likes of Stanza Living, CoLive and Zolo Stays, among others. 

Talking about the Indian coliving space, the sector has been badly impacted following the outbreak of the COVID pandemic. According to a report, due to the pandemic, the average monthly rentals in coliving space had gone down by 10-25% in metro cities in 2020. 

The report further stated that the number of beds was reduced to 1.3-1.4 Lakh in 2020 from 2 Lakh in 2019. Besides, the bed occupancy level also decreased to 40-60% in 2020. However, in 2021, the bed capacity in coliving space has improved again, climbing up to 2.10 Lakh while the occupancy level has plunged to 70% in 2021.