Student.com is a student accommodation marketplace that helps students to find

residential A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas. Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family residen ...

accommodation. The company operates focusing on the student accommodation market, by connecting students to landlords; highlighted in a niche in the property market. Student.com was founded by Luke Nolan in 2011 with Shakil Khan and John-Paul Jones joining in 2014. The company is headquartered in Dubai, with offices in the UK,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, Hong Kong,

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and India.

Company history

Inception

The company was initially founded in 2011 as ''Overseas Student Living'' by Luke Nolan. After working in

for several years, Nolan was regularly called upon by his Chinese friends to help recommend accommodation for students looking to study in the US, UK and

. Recognizing that many other individuals, especially students, were facing similar issues, Nolan realized that there was a potential market for an online student accommodation marketplace that could help in connecting students with trusted professional landlords for their accommodation needs. In 2014, he was joined by other co-founders Shakil Khan, who met Nolan 10-years earlier in Shanghai, and John-Paul Jones. The company rebranded itself as Student.com in 2015 to focus on expanding globally and hired a team of multilingual booking agents.

Growth and funding

In 2015, the company saw $110 million in bookings, listed properties in 426 cities in proximity to 1,000 universities. The company raised combined Series B and C funding of $60 million in 2016 led by VY Capital,

Horizons Ventures Sir Ka-shing Li (; born 13 June 1928) is a Hong Kong billionaire business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. As of June 2019, Li is the 31st richest person in the world, with an estimated net wealth of US$33.4 billion. He is the senior ad ...

, Expa, Spotify founders

Daniel Ek Daniel Ek (born 21 February 1983) is a Swedish billionaire entrepreneur and technologist. He is the co-founder and CEO of music streaming service Spotify. Early life and education Ek grew up in the Rågsved district of Stockholm, Sweden. He gra ...

and Martin Lorentzon, and Hugo Barra of Xiaomi.

Products and features

The listings on Student.com are displayed on an interactive map subdivided by different neighborhoods. The platform helps in the accommodation search for international students needing to secure a base for their studies from a distance. The website assigns the user to a booking consultant, who contacts the student to verify their details, including choice of room, roommate, tenancy length, price and student status. The service is free for students and it takes its commission as a cut from bookings. In April 2016, Forbes revealed that billionaire investor,

Jim Breyer James W. Breyer (born July 26, 1961) is an American venture capitalist, founder and chief executive officer of Breyer Capital, an investment and venture philanthropy firm, and a former managing partner at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm. B ...

invested an undisclosed amount in Student.com.

References

External links

* {{Official website Companies based in Dubai International education industry Online marketplaces of the United Arab Emirates