PropTech Funding Roundup: $21M for Amber, $4M for Privy, €400k for Habitacion.com

We promised increased PropTech coverage this year, and it's always nice to shed light on a wider cone of the real estate industry worldwide. Here are the biggest rounds we've spotted this week...

Student accommodation platform Amber raises $21M

Student accommodation platform Amber, founded in India and focusing primarily on matching Indian students with rental properties while they study abroad, has raised $21M in its first round of institutional funding, led by Gaja Capital (also India).

Amber receives $18.5M in fresh equity and $2.5M in venture debt from Lighthouse Canton (Singapore) and Stride Ventures (India).

In addition to one million beds in proximity to 800 universities worldwide, Amber offers adjacent services including loans, discounted flights, and guarantor services.

Saurabh Goel, cofounder and CEO at Amber, told the Economic Times:

"We are looking at scaling aggressively in the markets that we are currently already into.

"The UK, Australia and Ireland is the market that we started with, and we are the largest operator and platform in these markets, but at the same time, a lot of fund allocation would go into expanding into new markets like the US, Canada, and Europe as well."

Gopal Jain, managing partner at Gaja Capital, said:

"Global increase in student enrolments underpinned by a long-term study-abroad trend is fuelling the organised student housing market. We are deeply impressed by the team's ability to solve a critical pain point for both students and property managers."

Real estate investment software platform Privy raises $4M

Colorado-based real estate investment software platform Privy has raised $4M from investors including Cypress Growth Capital.

Privy's SaaS solution is built to find, analyze, and track markets to uncover investment deals regardless of experience level or economic climate. It uses direct-to-MLS data and patent-pending Investor CMA technology.

Privy filters an entire market in real-time from multifarious listings to the precise subset that will be profitable.

CEO Scott Fahl said:

"This is such an exciting time for us at Privy.

"Cypress Growth Capital is the type of partner we needed. They have the experience to help us scale strategically and understand what we mean when we say we want to change the real estate investing game."

Spanish startup Habitacion.com raises €400k to expand its room-buying investment platform

Spanish room seller Habitacion, which offers a new way of saving and investing through the purchase of rooms as a smart alternative to renting, has raised €400k in a round led by SeedRocket—Spain's first technology-based startup accelerator.

Other participation came from LANAI Partners and BeCapital Seed Money.

The company will allocate half of the capital raised to operational and infrastructure issues, while the other half will go towards validating the business model through the sale of the first rooms. The company says it is already in negotiations to expand the supply of available rooms in cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante.

Habitacion lets clients become owners of a part of a property, then sell or rent the room to recover the cost of investment in the future. Room buyers also become real owners of part of the asset and are registered in the Land Registry for extra security.

Oriol Valls, co-founder and CEO of habitacion.com, said:

"We want to transform the way people save by offering customers to avoid rental costs and save money when buying a room.

"We are confident that this first financial transaction will allow us to expand our business and achieve our goals. In addition, very relevant figures in the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem have backed our project, a fact that reinforces our status and will help us to continue growing."