Y Combinator infuses $120K in home rental marketplace ZiffyHomes

Home rental marketplace ZiffyHomes has raised $120K from one of the largest accelerators in the world Y Combinator. The  Gurugram-based startup is currently the part of YC’s summer cohort 2018 and is gearing up for its Demo day scheduled in August in the valley.

The investment round for ZiffyHomes comes after 6 months when it raised Rs 2 crore in a seed funding round from Bikky Khosla (CEO at TradeIndia.com) and Anirudh Agarwal, Managing Director at Shree Sharda Group.

Founded in May 2015 by Saurabh Sinha, Sanchal Ranjan, and Salil Agarwal, ZiffyHome is an online discovery platform for rental accommodation.

With more than 2,000 recurring customers, the startup offers a suite of services such as dedicated relationship managers, app-based service requests and real-time online transactions for booking house on rent.

The enterprise uses an analytics-based algorithm to generate area heat maps providing demand forecast and rentals of prevailing areas.

In an Interview with Entrackr, Ranjan, Co-founder, and CEO, ZiffyHomes revealed that “If the property is furnished by us, we charge 30 per cent as commission on the total rent. However, if house owners furnish the property themselves, we reduce the commission to 15 per cent of the total rent."

It makes revenue by charging a certain percentage of rentals to house owners in return of managing their property for rental purpose. This includes the furnishing of the premises and fixed rental revenues.

In February this year, ZiffyHomes acquired FellaHomes, a managed home rentals platform, to further expand offerings in the space.

There are several players including StayAbode, ZiffyHomes, CoLife, and CoHo, among others, operational in the space.