Grabhouse.com raises $2.5 million from Kalaari, Sequoia Capital

Grabhouse.com, community-based online exchange for finding rented accommodation, has closed a Series A funding of $2.5 million from Kalaari Capital and Sequoia Capital. The investment will be utilised to develop innovative products and improve the existing technology to enhance the end-user experience and to increase the company's footprint across major cities in India.

Grabhouse.com offers a broker-free and transparent experience to house hunters seeking rented or shared accommodation. The portal uses a proprietary engine to map the needs and preferences of prospective tenants and house owners that go beyond basic parameters such as budget and location to recommend the best matches. This not only saves the hassle of scouring through endless listings, but also considerably reduces the turnaround time for transactions. Another unique aspect of Grabhouse.com is the community-based model to source and verify listing-related information.

Commenting on the fund raise, Pankhuri Srivastava, Co-founder, Grabhouse.com said, "We are very excited and enthused by the confidence shown by Kalaari Capital and Sequoia Capital in our venture. The founding principle of Grabhouse.com is to offer a reliable accommodation solution that addresses the needs of both home seekers and owners, and this investment will definitely help us achieve that." She further added, "Currently, a majority of real-estate deals take place offline but there is a marked shift in this with 30% transactions being enabled through internet-based offerings. With an increasing number of users joining the internet bandwagon, we are certain that this transition will happen at a faster pace which gives this segment an optimistic outlook."

GV Ravishankar, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors said: "We are very excited to partner with GrabHouse. The problem of finding the right rental property or PG still happens to be an arduous task for the seeker and the Grabhouse team has done a fantastic job of creating a proprietary matching technology to efficiently solve this problem for the consumer. We look forward to helping them scale this to the next level to build a large and valuable platform.

Vani Kola, Managing Director, Kalaari Capital said, "At Kalaari we are strong believers in backing great teams. Pankhuri and Prateek are capable of building a leading company in a large category and we are excited to partner with them on this journey."

Founded in July 2013 by Pankhuri Shrivastava and Prateek Shukla, Grabhouse.com received seed fund from India Quotient and MV Krishnan from Deutsche Bank as well as Chetan Bohra and Navin Ranka from RB & Partners. The portal currently offers houses in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bengaluru and attracts a monthly traffic of about 1.5 million visitors which is largely driven through referrals and word of mouth.