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GrabHouse’s managed rental homes model operates on top of a broader rental marketplace which offers large inventory of paying guests and peer-to-peer rentals in India

India’s leading classified portal Quikr has announced the launch of a cashless managed rentals solution with the acquisition of Grabhouse, a digitally-driven home rental solutions provider.

As part of the acquisition, Bangalore-headquartered Quikr will integrate Grabhouse’s products and technology stack into its real-estate business QuikrHomes.

Grabhouse will continue operations as an independent brand for managed rental homes. As part of the overall integration process, its founders and entire team will move toQuikr.

Also Read: Quikr raises US$60M in investment round led by Tiger Global

Talking about the acquisition, Quikr COO Atul Tewari said, “The managed rentals model convenience to consumers while eliminating cash from property rentals. Our business here will also benefit from unique competitive advantages as the Grabhouse target market has a great match with many of our other businesses such as C2C and bikes. On the cost side, the operational costs of the business will directly get shared with our services business.”

Founded in July 2013 by Prateek Shukla and Pankhuri Shrivastava, Grabhouse offers digital solutions for the rental needs of both owners and tenants. The platform offers a managed rental homes model comprising a range of fully furnished, ready-to-move-in apartments across four major cities.

The managed rental homes model operates on top of a broader rental marketplace which offers large inventory of paying guests (PGs) and peer to peer rentals in India. The marketplace is present in 11 cities and has served 700,000 customers to date.

In October last year, GrabHouse raised US$10 million from Sequoia Capital andKalaari Capital. Three months later, it fired 100 employees as part of restructuring plans.

Manish Sinha, Head of QuikrHomes, added, “Grabhouse will provide a deeper solution for our large rental supply and demand flow across QuikrHomes and Commonfloor. We already dominate this sector in the country – this will help us expand our solutions portfolio while addressing the real estate industry’s need to shift to cashless payments. And it will do this while helping a very large number of real estate owners and consumers.”.

“Quikr has built a phenomenal ecosystem for all kinds of buyers and sellers. Through its multiple verticals, Quikr caters to a large target audience which opens for us a sea of potential consumers and property owners. At Grabhouse we’ve laid the foundation of a sound cashless business model for house rentals. We foresee massive business opportunity now, as joining forces with Quikr means scaling quickly to build not just a long term rentals brand but also enter other new territories,” Grabhouse founders said in a joint statement.

Quikr is one of the largest classifieds platforms used by over 30 million unique users a month. It is present in 1,000 cities in India and operates several large classifieds businesses across C2C, cars, education, homes, jobs and services. The platform allows consumers as well as small businesses to sell, buy, rent and find things across its multiple categories with great ease.

Its investors include Tiger Global Management, Kinnevik, Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners India, Norwest Venture Partners, Nokia Growth Partners, Steadview Capital, Omidyar Network, and eBbay.

Quikr has acquired many companies over the past one year, including Hiree, Salosa, and realtycompass, among others. In November 2015, Quikr merged with leading real estate portal CommonFloor

Image Credit: feverpitched / 123RF Stock Photo

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