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In an official statement, HousingAnywhere, the global accommodation platform for international students, announced recently that it secured whopping €6 million in capital in a Series B Financing Round.
The investment round was led by the Swedish fund Vostok New Ventures, along with existing investors Real Web and henQ. As per the company press release, the funding will be used towards product innovation, market expansion and to accelerate the growth of the Rotterdam-based student accommodation platform for mid-term rentals.
Djordy Seelmann, CEO of HousingAnywhere, was quoted saying, “At HousingAnywhere we’re focused on remaining the largest global platform for international students to book accommodation abroad. We will use the new investment to scale up, and we are taking major steps with the continued development of our booking platform.”
The newest investor on board, Vostok New Ventures, has a history of backing marketplace unicorns such as Avito, BlaBlaCar, and Gett. “In HousingAnywhere.com, we see a team that has proven itself, with a huge drive to scale up and become the dominant player in the online real estate market”, said Per Brilioth, Managing Director of Vostok New Ventures.
For those who are not aware, Housing Anywhere is an online platform which allows students to sublet their rooms to exchange students. Housing Anywhere has already scooped a €5.9 million series A round to finance its international growth. The funding was led by Real Web, a company behind the Italian real estate platform Immobiliare.it.
Meanwhile, Dutch VC HenQ has also invested in Housing Anywhere in the seed stage. Today, Silicon Canals have collection some exclusive information about the leading student housing rental company. So here we present to you 5 things you might not know about HousingAnywhere. Take a look!
#1 HousingAnwhere has expanded to 500 cities
HousingAnywhere was started by students from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University in Rotterdam in 2009. Now the startup has become a scaleup and has grown to be present in more than 500 cities globally. The company claims that it is the biggest student accommodation platform in the world with more than 5 million visitors a year.
#2 HousingAnywhere is active in more than 64 countries
Since its inception, HousingAnywhere gained popularity in Rotterdam in 2010 and got spread through word of mouth to the other universities in followed by Copenaghen, Stockholm, Barcelona and Sao Paulo. Currently, they are active in more than 64 different countries including USA, Brasil, Sweden, and Spain among others. Further, the company is focusing on the expansion of the platform in Western-Europe.
#3 Around 71,500 homes are registered in HousingAnywhere
The global accommodation marketplace for international students has more than 50,000 active advertisements in more than 50 countries and around 71,500 homes are already registered in the database of the company.
#4 Niels van Deuren found HousingAnywhere just like Mark Zuckerberg found Facebook
HousingAnywhere was founded in 2009 by Niels van Deuren when he was looking for temporary accommodation for his semester abroad in Singapore. He found the company in his student hostel room and initially started as a Dutch student side project when he tried to sublet his student room in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) to other international students, while he was in Singapore. And eventually, the idea caught up like fire and became popular from universities to cities.
#5 HousingAnywhere: 4th most innovative company in the Netherlands in 2017
In 2017, the Chamber of Commerce published the 12th edition of the top 100 most innovative companies and HousingAnywhere successfully made it to the 4th place. The company started with only 16 employees and has now 80 employees already. Recently the company also appointed Djordy Seelmann as the CEO of HousingAnywhere. As per the company’s spokesperson, the company is planning to expand to 120 employees by 2018.
In a recent press release, Niels Van Deuren, founder of HousingAnywhere said, “The supply of rooms and apartments is becoming more diverse, and we’re seeing that HousingAnywhere is increasingly being adopted by other user groups looking for a mid-term rental accommodation abroad, such as expats and digital nomads.”
For more latest information on the tech startup world in the Benelux, stay tuned to Silicon Canals.
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