Student Accommodation Platform Stanza Living Acquires YourShell

After a year of talks, Delhi-headquartered student housing startup Stanza Living has acquired student accommodation provider Yourshell for an undisclosed amount.

 Launched in 2017, YourShell started off with 145 beds to provide homes to students within the North campus area of Delhi University the startup has over 600 beds at 18 properties.

Talking about the acquisition, Shaifali Jain, cofounder, YourShell said, “We have been closely following Stanza Living’s journey and admire their operational expertise and how they have scaled their business pan-India. When we learnt that they were looking at strategic acquisitions for growth, we believed it was the ideal time to pass on the reigns to the experienced team at Stanza Living and become a part of their rapid-scale story.”

Sunny Garg, cofounder, YourShell said, “As students ourselves, we had seen the primitive condition of student housing options in the city from close quarters. YourShell was launched to revolutionize the daily living experience of students through a high-quality product built around convenience and choice. Over the last couple of years, we not only built a strong brand preference among the student community, but established a solid hyper-growth business. The success of our venture has stoked the entrepreneur in us and we are now moving on in search of the next big idea.”

Stanza Living, a tech-enabled student accommodation platform was started by Anindya Dutta and Sandeep Dalmia, has an inventory of 55K+ beds across 14 cities. It is based on a unique community living concept created for students moving to a new place. The startup has been working towards organising the industry through a process-driven service model and simultaneously transforming Stanza Living into a scalable business.

The company offers student accommodation for prices ranging from INR 3.5K to INR 25K per month.

In 2019, Stanza Living raised $4.4 Mn in venture debt from Alteria Capital. This comes after it raised $12.3 Mn from marquee global investors such as Sequoia Capital, Matrix and Accel Partners in the last 15 months. In September 2018, Stanza Living raised $10 Mn (INR 73 Cr) in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital with participation from existing investors — investment firms Matrix Partners and the California-headquartered Accel Partners.

The student accommodation platform claims to have grown exponentially— has scaled the business 7x since last year, unlocking an inventory of 15,000 beds across Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Indore, Vadodra and Dehradun in 2019.

A recent JLL report showed that the supply in the student housing market currently stands at 6 Mn beds and that there’s a massive shortage of 5 Mn beds. This is the market that Stanza Living is targeting.

According to various surveys, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Pune have been rated as the top markets for student housing in India. In conclusion, the student housing sector is an emerging one that is constantly evolving and real estate players and those companies offering exclusive student housing would do well to bear this in mind.