Grabhouse raises $2.5 million from Kalaari, Sequoia Capital

MUMBAI: Grabhouse.com, a community-based online exchange for finding rented accommodation, today said it has raised USD 2.5 million from Kalaari Capital and Sequoia Capital.

"Grabhouse.com has closed a Series A funding of USD 2.5 million from Kalaari Capital and Sequoia Capital," a release issued here said.

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, said Grabhouse.com Co-founder Pankhuri Srivastava.

The company had received seed fund from India Quotient and MV Krishnan from Deutsche Bank as well as Chetan Bohra and Navin Ranka from RB & Partners.

"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 said.

Currently, a majority of real estate deals take place offline but there is a marked shift in this with 30 per cent 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," she added.

Commenting on the deal, Sequoia Capital India Advisors Managing Director GV Ravishankar said, "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."

The portal currently offers houses in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bengaluru and attracts a daily traffic of about 5,00,000 visitors which is largely driven through referrals and word of mouth.