Covid-19 had a severe impact on businesses and different industries, specially co-accommodation business has been disrupted a lot with the deadly second covid wave. The major giants Oyo and NestAway have downscaled their operations whereas many are going via a very rough path.
Another startup Oxfordcaps, backed by Kalaari Capital and Times Internet too had a challenging phase. It has been in a fire sale by Altruist technologies that runs Bachelor-focused co-living platforms Abuzz.
The acquisition has been confirmed by Anuj Aggarwal, co-founder of Altruist. As per the reports, Oxfordcaps had begun downscaling its operations after the pandemic hit the nation and went through severe financial stress.
The company was founded in 2017, it has raised over $8 million involving a series A round from Kalaari Capital, Times Internet, and 500 Startups. Talking about its seed funding, it was led by ReadyVentures and a clutch of angel investors.
One of the sources suggests- “It had taken every measure to cut costs including a mass layoff and even rang the emergency bell to investors for a bridge round. However, none of the existing backers came forward to its rescue”.
Due to this, it had defaulted in making three debenture repayments during the fiscal year ending in March 2020.
It has been stated by one of the spokespeople- “Since the follow-on funding was unseen and the financial condition had deteriorated further, Oxfordcaps’ management had started looking for opportunities to consolidate from November”.
Moreover, the company was in the market for merger and acquisition deals, and there was no interest from major players in the co-living sector of the industry.
In January 2021, it had initiated talks with Abuzz and later finalized the deal. Later, in February the acquisition process began and is still underway and filings show that Oxfordcaps had appointed Lalit Kumar as the representative of Altruist technologies, to its board of directors.
After the acquisition, Oxfordcaps’ branding has been changed across its social handles, and now carries a brand name as “Abuzz Oxfordcaps”.
Aggarwal said- “Oxfordcaps exists and will continue as an independent entity focussed on students. Abuzz is in the broader segment of bachelor accommodation. The entities remain separate but there will be sharing of properties as well as the overlap of teams”.
