Home rental marketplace ZiffyHomes raises angel funding

Home rental marketplace ZiffyHomes has raised Rs 2 crore ($313,503) from a group of angel investors led by Bikky Khosla, chief executive of business-to-business portal Trade India and Anirudh Agarwal, managing director of diversified business conglomerate Shree Sharda Group. The two investors will join the startup’s board, a company statement said.

Others who participated in the round include Ajay Kaul, CEO of Jubilant FoodWorks; Karan Kumar, founder and CEO of Dubai-based investment firm Amalthea Capital, and Mini Monesh, managing director of wellness and spa chain Virgo Wellness, the statement added.

The Gurgaon-based company plans to utilise the capital to expand its infrastructure by building studio apartments, which would cater to a niche segment of executive class accommodation.

Founded in May 2015 by Sanchal Ranjan and Saurabh Kumar, Ziffy Technologies Private Limited lets its users rent or let out homes entirely online without brokerage. It offers ready-to-move-in individual rooms to tenants for long stays without any maintenance worry, the convenience of online rent payment, and the freedom to move across ZiffyHomes’ other homes.

“Combining technology with on-the-ground operations is our USP, bringing trust to the table. With these funds, we plan to foray into the studio apartments segment which would further cater to a niche section of executive class accommodation,” Ranjan, CEO of ZiffyHomes, said in the statement.

Prior to setting up ZiffyHomes, Ranjan worked with consulting firms KPMG and Deloitte. An IIT-Kanpur alumnus, Kumar previously served as assistant vice president of investment banking at SBI Capital Markets.

The company is currently present only in Delhi-NCR and is looking to expand to other cities. For homeowners, the company provides a platform to connect with verified tenants and help them earn higher house rental round the year in addition to a trouble-free home rental management solution. It uses an analytics-based algorithm to generate area heat maps providing demand forecast and rentals of prevailing areas for users.

“India has recently developed a growing appetite for rental housing. However, there’s a big gap between supply and demand largely due to a ‘trust discrepancy’ that many landlords face. The company is plugging the efficiency, trust and knowledge loophole,” said investor Agarwal.

The company competes with Bengaluru-based NestAway, which has been funded by investment firm Tiger Global, Ratan Tata and IDG Ventures, and has raised more than $45 million so far. Amarendra Sahu, Smruti Parida, Deepak Dhar, and Jitendra Jagadev founded it in January 2015.