This medical doctor builds 'community culture' with his co-living platform

Zolostays co-founder is using his background in human behavioural sciences to cater to the living needs of students, young professionals

Take a deeper look at the burgeoning start-up ecosystem, and you'll find that most young enterprises have either been built by people with strong domain expertise or by those who have a background in engineering and an MBA degree -- qualifications that foster a strong innovation culture. But the start-up that we are talking about is an exception as its founder started off as a medical practitioner, but is now marrying psychiatry with technology to create a unique co-living solution.

Nikhil Sikri, co-founder and CEO of Zolostays, a co-living solution provider, studied medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi. He served as a medical practitioner for a few years before deciding to build a living model for young professionals and students who move to different cities to pursue their career goals. His company Zolo is now taking the concept a step further, by helping the occupants to build a community culture as well.

“Zolo is my third venture, with the first being in health and the second in education. I don’t foresee myself parting ways from Zolo in the near future although we will be adding much more to the existing offering,” said Sikri.

After completing MBBS from AIIMS in 2007, Sikri continued to work in the field with a stint at the prestigious Singapore Institute of Mental Health. The entrepreneurial bug however, pushed him to pursue an MBA with the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, in order to get exposed to the world of business. Sikri has 10 years of diverse experience, and has also worked as a management consultant with Deloitte before trying out his start-up ideas.

“Our initial studies showed that there are around seven million houses in the market that are part of the informal economy and there was huge scope to formalise it,” said Sikri. The team found that the current housing needs for an entire target group of young professionals and students come with high costs and a big lock-in period with deposits and contracts. "This gave us enough reason to pursue this idea even more vigorously," he added.

The four-year-old start-up is the brainchild of Sikri, former Deloitte colleague Sneha Choudhry, and Sikri’s brother Akhil. The company currently operates in 10 cities including Bengaluru, Chennai, Kota, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Pune, Gurugram, Noida and Hyderabad. It offers two kinds of models – Zolo Standard and Zolo Select – to students and early-stage professionals. Currently, Zolostays offers both shared and private rooms for rent on its platform. It works largely with property developers instead of individual owners.

In January this year, the Bengaluru-based firm had raised $30 million in a series-B round from investors such as IDFC Alternatives, Mirae Asset, and Nexus Venture Partners. The company is also in advanced talks to raise up to $100 million in its next round, through a mix of equity and debt. Zolostays’ other investors include OLX founde Alec Oxenford, Chennai-based Olympia Developers and Patni Computers’ Family Office.

The USP of Zolostays lies in the way the platform manages the entire living experience for residents with a complex AI-ML based software. Everything from WiFi, housekeeping, repairs and maintenance, food service, and DTH connections at its properties is included in the monthly rent. Zolo calculates over 170 data points about different locations to calibrate the feasibility of a given location for business as well as individual occupant requirements.

“We have started adding a lot of non-property initiatives where people go out together for treks, join biker clubs and celebrate things together. We have, in fact, started working on software products that can help foster a community culture by bringing people (the residents) together," said Sikri.

He added that these solutions stem from intensive research, including inputs from his background in psychiatry to help incentivise the residents on the platform to communicate and engage better. The software product is meant to exhort occupants, especially those less likely to participate in community events, to meet others and build a community culture in the process. The start-up aims to monetise the solution as it is likely to be in demand across enterprises as well, said Sikri.