Freshup, a Chennai-based hospitality startup has raised around ₹10 crore ($1.5 million) from Lotus Global Investments — a Singapore based venture capital firm. The money will be used by the company to strengthen its presence in South India.
The startup is also looking forward to partner with small-scale investors/entrepreneurs who are willing to invest in properties. Under the partnership, these entrepreneurs can invest 50% or more of the entire property cost and Freshup will hand-hold them for three years. Explaining this, Vinyl Reddy, CEO of FreshUp said, “initially, they would have a share of the profit and after three years, they would singlehandedly manage the property.”
Commenting on the funding, Vinyl Reddy, CEO of FreshUp said,
We are using the investment to expand into other geographies including Guruvayur, Bengaluru, Chennai, Sabarimala. The ecosystem does not offer much for travellers just seeking to freshen up for a couple of hours and is offering rooms at starting from Rs 249, according to the number of hours used has helped us rake in investments.
The company was founded by Pothala Vinyl Reddy and Laxmi Narasimha in 2016. It offers micro stay services based on ‘pay as one uses’ model at poshtels to short-stay travellers. The startup currently has its properties in Hyderabad and Tirupati.
The startup aims to cater to travellers specifically shoppers who require few hours to freshen up. The startup’s poshtels also provide safe lockers and food services.
It has plans to roll-out Freshup services across the country within two years. The upcoming properties in Chennai, Coimbatore and Tiruchy will be based on the metro-poshtel model, whereas Madurai, Velankanni, Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai and Shirdi will be based on the pilgrim centres model.