Grexter receives $1.5 million fund from Venture Catalysts

Catalysts has invested $1.5 million in Grexter hassle-free rental accommodation providing platforms for students and young professionals in the country. Grexter has raised the capital as part of its Pre-Series A funding round and it aims to leverage the funds for enhancing the inventory it offers as well as to ramp up its technology architecture. Notable investors Arisht Jain of Samyakth Group, Vikas Bohra, and Vishal Shah participated in round, in addition to the participation from developers, HNIs, real estate professionals, family offices, private equity funds, wealth management companies and others.

Grexter provides state-of-the-art co-living spaces to those looking for hassle-free and cost-effective community living options. Problems such as hefty brokerage fees, low-quality homes, sky-high rents and deposits, and picky homeowners are all eliminated when one moves into a Grexter property. The platform standardizes, simplifies and enhances the house hunting experience for students and working professionals who aren’t looking for traditional housing options but for contemporary living solutions that cater to their lifestyle preferences and enable them to co-live with other like-minded individuals.

Its USP is that it offers fully-furnished state-of-the-art co-living spaces, wherein the rent covers all amenities and services like bills, internet, DTH, daily housekeeping, etc. Another highlight of these co-living spaces is that they have tastefully-done common areas like game rooms, community kitchens and lounges that promote the concept of community living. Grexter is currently at approximately 1,500 beds across Bangalore and plans to significantly increase that number in the near future.

Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-Founder & President of Venture Catalysts, says, “Venture Catalysts is on a mission to identify promising ventures that actually plug a gap in the market and address pertinent consumer needs. The rental accommodation sphere caters to one of the most basic needs of consumers. Yet, it continues to be highly fragmented and plagued with key problems pertaining to quality, transparency and high brokerage fees. Grexter eliminates all these lacunae with its unique and tech-driven business model. It is also creating a robust co-living ecosystem in India and we are certain that it will successfully capture a lion’s share of the US$20 billion accommodation rental market through its innovative approach.”

Besides its promising proposition, Grexter was identified as an attractive investment avenue, thanks to its stellar founding team comprising IIT-Madras alumni Pratul Gupta and Nikhil Dosi. Pratul has been an investment banker with Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank and has also worked with a venture capital fund called Acumen. Nikhil has worked in Reliance Industries and also been the Operations Head of Gopigeon, a NEXUS-funded logistics startup.

Pratul Gupta, Founder, Grexter, says, “We believe in perfecting the practice before taking a big leap. Having bootstrapped the venture, we’ve climbed our way up firefighting and understanding every use-case scenario possible. We are confident that with the mentorship and the influx of funds from Venture Catalysts we’d be able to accelerate the growth of Grexter and invigorate our tech platform as well. We envision scaling up rapidly and accommodating over 5,000 beds by the end of 2019. This is the start of another exciting chapter in our growth story.”