Home rental firm Nestaway’s new incubation programme targets consumer startups

Bengaluru-based online home rental startup Nestaway Technologies Pvt. Ltd on Monday launched Nestaway Startup Lab, an incubation programme aimed at consumer startups, a company statement said.

A six-month equity-free incubation programme, Nestaway Startup Lab will help incubated companies grow their business by offering them mentorship and access to its customer base. Run in partnership with Bengaluru-based startup accelerator Excubator, Nestaway will accept applications till 1 March 2019. The partnership with Excubator will further help the shortlisted companies gain external resources and mentorship from senior management.

“Given the cost involved in starting up, it is available to very few who could afford to or who could garner seed investments. Therefore, we wanted to allow startups to use our customer base to get access to customers without any fee or expectation,” said Amarendra Sahu, chief executive officer and co-founder, Nestaway Technologies in the statement.

Nestaway, which is one of the most well-funded player in this space, was founded by Sahu, Deepak Dhar, Smruti Parida and Jitendra Jagadev in January 2015. It turns ‘for-rent’ apartments into managed, fully-furnished houses and provides them to pre-verified tenants.

The venture initially targeted single working professionals but has expanded its services to families. Currently, the company offers both shared and private rooms for individuals as well as properties suited for families.

It caters to over 55,000 tenants and 25,000 homes in Bengaluru, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Noida, Pune, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Greater Noida, Faridabad, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Mumbai.

The company is currently in the process of raising $100 million from Chinese conglomerate Fosun International Ltd and Shunwei Capital, according to several media reports.

For the financial year ended 31 March 2018, Nestaway’s revenue growth grew at a slower pace and its losses widened.

The firm’s operating revenue rose 70% to Rs 41.86 crore, from Rs 24.72 crore during the previous year.

Its net losses increased to Rs 156.81 crore in 2017-18, from Rs 97.72 crore the previous year.

Last year in March, it had raised $51 million in a Series D round of funding led by Goldman Sachs and UC-RNT Fund. Existing investors IDG Ventures and Tiger Global has also put in money.

Last year in July, the company also strengthened its top deck by hiring former Amazon executive Sandeep Daga as its chief financial officer and former RBS technical lead Ravindra Singh Rawat as vice president of technology.

Nestaway competes with peer-to-peer (P2P) property listing portal NoBroker and branded and managed paying guest accommodation provider Zolostays. It also faces competition from budget hospitality chain OYO, which entered the shared residential space in October last year.