[Funding alert] Student accommodation provider Stanza Living raises $4.4M in debt from Alteria Capital
Delhi-based Stanza Living recently raised $12.3 million in equity funding from Sequoia Capital, Matrix and Accel Partners.
Student housing company Stanza Living announced today that it has raised $4.4 million (Rs 30 crore) in debt funding from Alteria Capital. The Delhi-based startup had raised $12.3 million (Rs 85 crore) in equity funding from Sequoia Capital, Matrix and Accel Partners in September 2018.
At the time, the company said it would use the funding to strengthen its technology and aggressively expand its presence to 15,000 beds in Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Indore, Vadodara and Dehradun this year. It claims to have scaled its business 7x since last year, and has a team of 250 people.
Stanza Living was founded by Sandeep Dalmia and Anindya Dutta in 2017. While Dalmia is an alumnus of Delhi College of Engineering and IIM Ahmedabad, Dutta is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad.
In a statement, Anindya said that the latest round of debt funding would be used to unlock inventory of 1 lakh beds by 2021, adding,
"Through this strategic partnership with Alteria, we will also be working on developing interesting financing and funding structures relevant to our business."
Sandeep said that Stanza Living's full-stack business model allows them to tailor its services to the specific requirements of students. “We are excited about the confidence of the investor community in our business model,” he added.
Commenting on the deal, Ajay Hattangdi, Managing Partner of Alteria Capital, said,
“Stanza is the type of game changing venture that we love to partner...Anindya and Sandeep have exciting growth plans for the company and it is our pleasure to support Stanza through our debt funding solutions along with access to our network and partnerships.”
The student accommodation space has seen several players enter the fray in the past couple of years. A recent report by real estate leader JLL pegged the market at $15 billion. Startups in the space include Placio, which raised $2 million in Pre-series A funding led by Prestellar Ventures, as well as Delhi-based Student Acco, which is primarily focussed on student housing. Large companies like OYO too are now exploring the student accommodation space.
Earlier today, another student living startup, Oxfordcaps, announced that it had raised $8 million in Series A funding in a round led by Times Internet. Existing investors Kalaari Capital and Silicon Valley-based early-stage fund 500 Startups also participated.