Stanza Living expands beyond student housing; Sam Zell’s PE firm joins Series C round

Dtwelve Spaces, the New Delhi-based company that owns shared living services provider Stanza Living, has received an undisclosed investment from Equity International (EI), a private equity firm founded by American billionaire Sam Zell. The investment is part of the company’s Series C round. 

The investment will help the startup scale its portfolio, expand its geographic footprint and solidify its brand positioning, EI said in a statement.

The company earlier raised an undisclosed sum from New York headquartered hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital, returning investors Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners India and Accel as part of the Series C round. 

“Stanza Living addresses the under-served demand for high-quality, standardised housing in a market with approximately 20 million migrant millennial population,” EI chief executive officer Tom Heneghan said.

EI’s capital infusion marks the close of its Series C round, a Stanza Living spokesperson told TechCircle. The deal also marks EI’s second investment in India since 2011. Its maiden bet in the country was on SAMHI Hotels, which operates the largest number of Marriott and Hyatt hotels in India.

Overall, Stanza Living has raised $70 million so far, which includes $10 million in venture debt from Alteria Capital.

The company also announced it foray into the working professionals category on Wednesday, with an investment commitment of Rs 150 crore. It said the new initiative functions as a separate business line.

“Like our student offering, we have invested in understanding the nuanced needs of working professionals,” Anindya Dutta, managing director and co-founder of Stanza Living, said.

Residents at Stanza properties, the firm claims, get rewards and goodies through tie-ups with restaurants, fitness centres and dance classes. Students are provided guidance with online study materials and internship opportunities, as well as connections to the alumni network.

The company is launching the new vertical with 10,000 beds across Coimbatore, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, and plans to expand to Chennai, New Delhi and Indore this year. 

The new addition takes the company’s overall inventory under management to 55,000 beds in both categories across 10 cities.

“We have done a lot of research around the market opportunity, business model and the size of the market. We think the working professionals segment is a $10 billion opportunity, almost the same size as the student housing segment. We expect this market to grow four times in 10 years, reaching a market size worth $40 billion by 2030,” Dutta told TechCircle.

Stanza Living was founded in 2017 by Dutta and Sandeep Dalmia. Dalmia, an alumnus of Delhi College of Engineering and IIM Ahmedabad, was a principal at the Boston Consulting Group. Dutta, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad, was a real estate investor with Oaktree Capital and has worked at Goldman Sachs.