Student Housing Startup Placio Raises $2 Mn In Pre-Series A Funding

Noida-based Placio, a student housing startup has raised $2 Mn in a Pre-Series A funding round from Prestellar Ventures, a Singapore-based private equity fund.

The startup plans to use these funds to expand its services in India and Southeast Asia. Placio also wants to benefit from the experience and network of the fund to improve its existing capacity by 20 times in the year.

Placio also plans to use these funds to acquire additional beds and make its technology platform well-equipped with hostel management system, roommate matching and search, value-added services like ordering food, booking of events, CRM system and others using in-house mobile wallet.

Rabindra Shrestha, Managing Partner of Prestellar Ventures, said, “Placio has been able to address the needs of the rapidly expanding college student population of India by providing safe, clean, amenity-filled housing with a strong community and technology backbone.”

He further added that Placio has grown its footprint with limited resources so far, and now the company aims to grow its in-house platform.

Founded in 2016 by Rohit Pateria and Ankush Arora, Placio offers modern living spaces, fully furnished rooms, private rooms and personal apartments near localities and university campuses.

Rohit Pateria, CEO of Placio, said, “Student housing is an interesting growth sector, as there is an immense undersupply of such purpose-built accommodation in India. Our vision is to entirely redefine ‘student living’ by creating boundary-blurring spaces and colourful experiences to connect and thrive in smart design co-living.”

In the student housing sector, Placio competes with the likes of Zocalo’s CoHoStayz.com, which caters to the needs of young professionals and university students.

CoHoStayz pegs on a co-living concept and offers managed-apartments and villas while catering to the long-stay accommodation needs of the youth.

In the online rental space, we have startups like Homigo, Fella Homes, etc. which offer fully equipped homes for working professionals.

However, in the growing online home rental spaces, there are very few startups addressing the issue of student stays. In its statement, Placio claimed that the total number of beds in campus housing and private hostels currently available in India is close to 6.1 Mn.

According to a recent research by Placio, there are 50 million students studying in colleges and universities in the country, out of which 60-65% students are studying outside their home town.

With its USP of being solely focussed on students, Placio has tapped into an industry with an untapped opportunity. The online home rental industry is blooming with ease of service for its users and it will be interesting to see what Placio brings next on the student housing platform after the funding.