Stanza Living to scale up to 45,000 beds by month-end

Stanza Living, a student housing start-up claims that it will reach 45,000 beds by the end of November and the set target of 100,000 beds will be achieved before 2021.

The Delhi-based start-up launched operations in July 2017 with only 100 beds in Delhi University's North campus area and since then has scaled up aggressively in the last two years. "We started with 100 beds in 2017, scaled that to 2000 beds in 2018 and are about to hit 45,000 beds by the end of November, spread across 10 cities," says managing director and co-founder Mr. Anindya Dutta.

The total capital investment is around US$ 70 million after the recent funds raised in Series C round led by Falcon Edge Capital. According to the industry experts, the start-up was valued at US$ 300 million in the current round.

Mr. Dutta says that the company is trying to develop mini campus like clusters in every educational hub and also has plan to invest Rs 250 crore in expanding operations to tier 1 and tier 2 cities. The focus is on Tier 1 cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Delhi while Tier 2 cities have opportunity markets including Baroda, Coimbatore, Indore and Jaipur.

The idea behind is to change the thought about hostel living, by offering high quality residences and providing supporting services such as common areas, gaming zones and even gyms. Healthcare, laundry services and Internet packages are other value-added services that are offered. 

According to a report by JLL, the student housing market opportunity in India is estimated at US$ 15 billion. The number of students in higher education space are estimated at 34 million and the demand for affordable housing option is still unmet for those who migrate from smaller cities to metros and tier 2 cities in India. 

Thus, many start-ups including Nestaway, OYO Life, and Zolo Stays provide millennials co-living facilities. According to Mr. Dutta, the use of technology by the company sets them apart from other players in the market providing housing solutions.

"The way we think about technology is that it should help us scale and also provide customization to the consumer," said MD and co-founder Mr. Sandeep Dalmia, who oversees technology.

Mr. Dalmia has developed a student facing app that permits students to provide feedback on the residence spaces, menu, and even communicate with operations team. The app also offers access to events and offers, discounts on restaurants and even allows buying Internet packs.

Technology is also used at the backend to scale the product.  The team uses algorithm to identify and select properties, figure out the rent in that area and also decide on end user pricing so that there are no false underwrites. "We very rarely get a building wrong and that's very important for us to accelerate and drive growth. I think we are comfortable at the pace at which we are growing, and we will reach our target of 1 lakh beds sooner than expected" adds Mr. Dutta.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.