Ratan Tata-Backed NestAway Sold To Aurum PropTech At Steep 95% Valuation Cut

Ratan Tata-backed proptech startup NestAway Technologies Pvt. has been acquired by listed firm Aurum PropTech Ltd. with a 95% cut in the former's pre-Covid valuation.

Aurum said it has acquired NestAway for about Rs 90 crore, according to an exchange filing. That's a steep decline from its Rs 1,800 crore, or $220 million, valuation in 2019.

Aurum will further inject Rs 30 crore to stabilise NestAway, the filing said.

In June 2022, Aurum PropTech acquired HelloWorld, a co-living space operator, from NestAway.

"After successfully scaling up HelloWorld's operations within a year, Aurum PropTech has strategically acquired NestAway. The founders of HelloWorld, Jitendra Jagadev and Ismail Khan, who were originally part of the founding team at NestAway, will now lead NestAway post-acquisition," it said.

This means the founders of NestAway, Amarendra Sahu, Deepak Dhar, and Smruti Parida, will all be leaving the acquired entity.

NestAway's business crumbled during the Covid-19 pandemic, as lockdowns and reverse migration meant that people left their rented homes to move back to their hometowns as remote work became prevalent.

Pre-pandemic, NestAway featured 50,000 properties on its platform and achieved an annualised revenue of Rs 100 crore. Currently, however, the number has fallen to 18,000 properties and an annualised revenue of Rs 30 crore.

Founded in 2015, NestAway has cumulatively raised around Rs 900 crore from marquee investors such as Tiger Global and the UC-RNT Fund, which is a joint venture between Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata's RNT Associates and the University of California.

It also had names such as Flipkart, Goldman Sachs, and Yuri Milner on its investor table.

Aurum PropTech's shares jumped as much as 8.6% to Rs 128 apiece on the announcement. That compares with 0.46% gains in the S&P BSE Sensex.