Co-living Startup Zolo Secures Series B Funding of $30M Led by Existing Investor Nexus Venture Partners and IDFC Alternatives

Zolo, a co-living brand in India, today announced that it has raised $30 million in a Series B round of funding led by IDFC Alternatives, Mirae Asset and Nexus Venture Partners.
Zolo had last raised Series A ($5 million) funding from Nexus Ventures Partners in December 2016. In the last two years, the company has grown 800% from 2,000 live beds to 16,000 live beds with 157 properties currently under Zolo management. Zolo is targeting 50,000 beds by the end of this year. The company has tied up with numerous building owners, and large developers to acquire supply and already has a healthy pipeline to reach its goal.
Zolo will primarily utilize the fresh fund for rapid expansion to other cities, strengthen its footprint in the 6 cities it is present in and invest in the student accommodation segment. The company will also use the capital to extend the technology division and venture into new technologies like IoT to enhance its service offerings to customers. Community engagement is going to be one of the prime focuses for the company and it has plans to dedicate a significant part of the money to build the tech platform for the same and work on other offline means. Bangalore based, leading Investment Bank IndigoEdge was the exclusive banker for the transaction.
Commenting on the development, Nikhil Sikri, Co-founder and CEO, Zolo, said, “Our vision is to change the way people imagine living. Co-living spaces offerimmense potential as a market in India, something that we at Zolo identified and tapped into, early, with Zolo being the first full stack player to enter this business in 2016. Zolo is currently the largest and the highest rated co-living player in the country. With this fresh round of funding, we plan to continue our lead as the biggest co-living brand and keep raising the bar for customer service.”
Ashish Dave, Head Venture Investments at Mirae Asset Global Investments (India), said, “Zolo is addressing a large and real problem of providing quality affordable living solutions for young professionals in urban India. We are delighted to support them in their vision to provide end-to-end, convenient housing solutions to these students/individuals alike and build a successful community with strong social connect.”
Gaurav Sharma, Partner at IDFC Alternatives, commented, “Zolo is a pioneer that is disrupting the unorganized affordable accommodation ecosystem in India. Co-living is a very large and financially attractive market and we are happy to back a high-quality management team at Zolo, in their journey to establish co-living as an asset with their promising solution.”
Sameer Brij Verma, Partner at Nexus Venture Partners, said, “Zolo has registered strong growth in a short span of 3 years and has emerged as India’s largest player in the co-living space. We are confident that their approach and execution can extend across several other markets. We look forward to working with Nikhil and his team to reach more customers across the country.”
Zolo currently manages 157 properties across in 6 cities viz. Bangalore, Chennai, Kota, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad and Pune via two kinds of models – Zolo Standard and Zolo Select. The startup has 16K beds live and has locked-in 50K beds for the near future. With this number, it has become the largest co-living player in India.