The Hello World, Nestaway Technologies’ co-living arm recently acquired StayAbode and is on a look out for 2-3 more acquisitions. The development is a part of the firm’s aim of reaching 50K beds capacity by March 2021. The Hello World presently owns 20,000 beds and plans to add 30,000 more beds by end of financial year 20-21 through organic or inorganic ways.
Jitendra Jagadev, CEO and founder of The Hello World told that the annual revenue of the firm stood at Rs 40 crore in last FY which is expected to bounce to Rs 140-150 crore in the ongoing fiscal year. Nestaway Technologies which is originally a rental property management firm moved into co-living business with the launch of The Hello World in September last year. The objective of the company was to provide accommodation to both students and professionals.
“We currently have around 20,000 beds across 17 cities. Out of which15,000 beds are meant for working professionals and rest for students,” said Jagadev, “We are targeting to reach 50,000 beds by March 2021. We are in discussions with landlords across various cities to take their properties on lease model.”
StayAbode which was taken over by The Hello World a few months back had a capacity of 2000 beds during the deal. “We are targeting to acquire at least 2-3 co-living operators each having an enterprise value of USD 10 million or more,” Jagadev added. The upcoming deals would mostly be stock deals with small components of cash.
The company’s business has also been affected by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as students have headed back to their homes. They are presently focusing on working professionals’ side of business and have expect their sales to go up once the educational institutions restart.
Nestway was founded in 2015 with the objective of providing affordable rental housing for individuals in top cities of the country. It has raised $100 million till date from various investors including Goldman Sachs. To make their processes more safe and secure the company has started virtual walkthroughs for search, shortlisting and booking apartments on rent.