Home rental marketplace ZiffyHomes buys Nivaasa in all-cash deal

Delhi-based home rental services marketplace ZiffyHomes, run by Ziffy Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has acquired home rental platform Nivaasa in an all-cash deal, the companies said on Thursday. The deal amount, however, was not disclosed.

Nivaasa, owned by Goa-registered Accurent Property Management Pvt. Ltd, was founded in 2016 by Louis Pereira, Reuben Noronha and Gaurav Sood. It currently operates across Gurgaon, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru with its own furnished living spaces, besides providing rental search options to home seekers. The platform also allows customers to customise furnishing requirements such as the number of furniture they would like to have in a rented home.

“A huge increase in rental numbers is changing how people think about furnished spaces… This acquisition will help us target these millennials spread across the major metro cities in India,” said Sanchal Ranjan, chief executive, ZiffyHomes.

Louis Pereira, co-founder, Nivaasa said in a press note: “Besides sharing a common vision with Ziffy Homes, we were impressed with the team they have put together to make that vision a reality. We are happy to join hands with them and be a part of their journey to make it easier for more people to find great living spaces to rent.”

In February, ZiffyHomes had acquired competitor Fella homes.

It had also 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. ()

ZiffyHomes competes with Bengaluru-based NestAway. Last December, NestAway had reportedly raised $50 million in a round led by UC-RNT Fund, along with the participation of its existing investors IDG Ventures and Tiger Global.

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

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

It currently operates 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.