Co-living startup Grexter Living buys i2Stay to expand operations

Grexter Living, a co-living platform owned by Bengaluru-based Grexter Housing Solutions, has acquired i2Stay, a budget accommodation service provider. The details of the acquisition were not disclosed. 

As part of the deal, i2Stay founder and CEO Rajasekhar Gowrineni will join Grexter Living as managing partner for South India. Following the acquisition, the company’s beds capacity in Bengaluru will increase to 5,000. 

i2Stay, also based in Bengaluru, was launched early last year. The company has been developing  built-to-suit, customisable accommodation projects that will now be taken over by Grexter Living, according to a statement. Grexter Living also aims to expand its presence beyond Bengaluru into cities such as Pune and Hyderabad by 2020.

“Rajasekhar has been a pioneer in space-saving concepts, and through this partnership, we will be able to leverage his expertise… We are already working on some really innovative co-living design ideas and hope to bring them to life very soon,” Pratul Gupta, co-founder, Grexter Living said.

Gupta, a IIT Madras alumnus, founded the startup in 2016 with Nikhil Dosi. Prior to venturing into the co-living space, Gupta worked as an analyst at Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank while Dosi worked as head of operations at logistics platform GoPigeon. The startup offers fully-furnished studio apartments aimed primarily at young, salaried profressionals and fresh graduates. 

In January, Grexter Living raised $1.5 million in its pre-Series A round of funding led by venture capital firm and incubation platform Venture Catalysts. At the time, Venture Catalysts said that the funds would be used to enhance the startup’s inventory and revamp its technology architecture. 

The growth of the co-living space in India has been gathering momentum. A clutch of C-level executives from the real-estate sector recently invested in accommodation platform Housr. The deal, announced in April, was struck at a time when the startup was yet to launch operations. 

In January, Mumbai-based co-living startup Zolo secured $30 million in its Series B round. Private equity firm IDFC Alternatives, Nexus Venture Partners and Seoul-based Mirae Asset led the funding round. CoLive, a shared living space provider operated by Bengaluru-based real-estate firm CoLife Advisory, raised $1.8 million in a funding round led by SAR Group’s Ncubate Capital Partners.