Online marketplace for shared accommodation Nestaway raises $12M from Flipkart, Tiger Global

Bangalore-based Nestaway Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs an online managed home rental marketplace for singles by the same name, has raised Rs 76 crore (approximately $12 million) in funding from consumer e-commerce venture Flipkart and its investor Tiger Global.

The Economic Times, which first reported the deal, said the startup will use the funding to expand operations to new cities and improve the technology platform.

A Nestaway spokesperson did not respond to a Techcircle.in questionnaire till the time of publishing this report.

According to the company website, it is planning to foray into Pune and Gurgaon. Nestaway has already listed Bengaluru-based accommodations.

Nestaway was founded by NIT Suratkal alumni Amarendra Sahu, Jitendra Jagadev, Smruti Parida and Deepak Dhar.

Sahu, a BTech in computer science who went on to do MBA from IIM Bangalore, had earlier co-founded television technology startup BrizzTV along with Jagadev. He worked for five years with Cisco, Juniper and Lucent across data networking and wireless domains.

Earlier in March this year, Nestaway had raised about Rs 8 crore ($1.25 million) from IDG Ventures and a string of angel investors such as InMobi founder Naveen Tewari.

Nestaway aims to turn 'for-rent' apartments into fully-furnished and managed houses that can be provided to pre-verified tenants.

In effect it seeks to target singles, either working professionals or students, who generally opt for such shared accommodation through an unorganised channel to share costs of rentals, especially in large cities.

With the property owner, the startup gets involved with tenant sourcing, rent collection, maintenance of the house and even manages tenant move-outs. It also offers free minor repairs and does not charge separate brokerage from the property owner.

Recently, online peer-to-peer home rental portal NoBroker.com raised $3 million in Series A round of funding led by SAIF Partners and Fulcrum Ventures.