After the talks for over a year, the Delhi-HQ startup, Stanza Living (1), a student housing startup, has acquired YourShell at an undisclosed price. YourShell, established by Delhi University students, is among the youngest startup to secure venture debt under India’s Government’s StandUp India Program. It was launched in 2017 and now has over 600 beds in 18 properties. Notably, the startup started its journey with 145 beds to provide accommodation to students within the North Campus area of Delhi University.
Shaifali Jain, Co-founder of YourShell, stated on the acquisition that the team had been closely following journey of Stanza Living. We admire their expertise in operations and how they scaled their business pan India. After learning that they are looking for acquisitions for further growth. We believed that it is an ideal time to become part of their rapid ramp up story.
Stanza Living Started as Unique Concept of Community Living
Stanza Living is a tech-enabled accommodation startup for students. Anindya Dutta and Sandeep Dalmia started the platform. The concept behind Stanza Living is a unique community living for students who are moving to a new place.
The startup is working towards an organized industry with its process-driven service model. They have an inventory of over 55 thousand beds in over 14 cities in India. It offers students the service at several prices ranges from 3500 INR to 25,000 INR per month.
In 2019, Stanza Living had secured 4.4 million USD from Alteria Capital as venture debt. In the previous 15 months, the startup has raised over 12.3 million USD from different global investors. It includes Matrix, Sequoia Capital, and Accel Partners. In 2018, the student accommodation firm had secured 10 million USD or 73 crores INR from Sequoia Capital in a funding round. Other investors, including Matrix Partners, Accel Partners, also participated in the finance round.
Stanza Living claims that they have grown and increased their business 7x over the last years. They have unlocked the inventory of 15,000 beds across different cities in India. It includes Delhi NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, Indore, Chennai, Vadodara, and Dehradun.
