India: Coliving operator Hyphen has raised US$1 million from investors to expand the business.
The fund raised in the pre-seed round constitutes a combination of equity and minority debt, with notable angels from Silicon Valley and Sriram Puthucode, former VP at Symantec Global, the Bengaluru-based company said.
Hyphen’s fresh capital will be deployed towards expanding into new markets, launching new product types and integrating technology and automation to drive consumer experiences, it added.
Hyphen (formerly called Dwellingo) launched its first property in August 2021. It plans to have 6,000 beds and expand into five markets, starting with Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Delhi-NCR, by 2023.
The company was founded in June 2021 by Anirudh Rao, Grishma Reddy, Rishi Sreedharan, and Samarth Gowda.
“People are drawn towards experience-focused, de-densified living; the pandemic helped accelerate this push. In fact, 76 per cent of consumers are more likely to spend on experiences than materialistic things. As people move back into the city, they are looking for something different, and the run-of-the-mill shared-living experience will no longer cut it, said CEO Sreedharan.
