Indonesian Co-Living Startup Flokq Acquires Prop-tech Startup YukStay

Indonesia’s long-term rental start-up, Flokq, has acquired co-living startup YukStay. Quoted from Tech in Asia, Thursday (25/3/2021), over the past 18 months, companies have built platforms to simplify the real estate value chain.

Agents are equipped with technology and data that facilitate transactions, enhance customer experience and manage the property. Anand Janardhanan, the CEO of Flokq, said that the deal focuses on acquiring the technology capabilities YukStay has built.

That’s because Flokq strives to scale from providing shared living spaces to technology-driven property management services and beyond.

We want to increase our membership in Indonesia, not only in co-existence but actually expanding our service offering to the platform and scale of the full-term rental market across Southeast Asia in the next two years, said Janardhanan.

Flokq has been Testing Co-Living Services since 2019

For information, Flokq was founded in 2019 and for the first time tested co-living services and communities living in apartments throughout Jakarta. Janardhanan claims to have more than 1,000 units on the platform in the capital, with an occupancy rate of over 95 percent and several million US dollars in annual recurring income.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the Large-Scale Social Regulations (PSBB) established by the government since last March have changed the dynamics of life in all fields. For office workers, work activities are carried out via Zoom Meeting and can be done from home.

The month of Ramadan this year is also different because it takes place during the Covid-19 pandemic, workers who live far from their hometowns cannot go home, mostly living in residential apartments for coliving and in boarding houses.

Flokq.com, which is a coliving space service platform, provides comfortable residential facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic. Urban living requires an affordable and comfortable platform, the ability to connect with like-minded people and fix urban housing problems.

The company has developed cooperation with several partner companies in the future Flokq will collaborate with more companies to introduce the co-living concept in Indonesia. An employee from Bangladesh, Properti Hasan, said that Flokq had helped him a lot while living and working in Indonesia.

Yukstay Develops Marketplace Services for Apartments and Boarding Houses

YukStay is a prop-tech startup that develops online marketplace services for apartment and boarding rentals. Currently only operating around Jabodetabek and Surabaya.

Early in 2020, they joined the Y Combinator business accelerator program with several other local players, namely Pahamify and Newman’s. As is known, participation in the program has also benefited startups from getting seed rounds of around 2 billion Rupiah.

Founded in 2018, YukStay is fronted by two founders, namely Jacky Steven and Christopher Kung. Prior to joining YC, they also raised $ 4 million or the equivalent of 65 billion Rupiah from a number of investors in the Series A round, including Insignia Ventures and K3 Ventures.

Applying the B2B2C business model, YukStay not only accommodates temporary housing needs for consumers, but they also help property owners.

To property owners, there are three services provided in addition to listing, including stewardship of legal requirements related to leasing, helping prospective customers to see property units, and managing/checking inventory when property users change.

In addition to fully leasing apartment units, they also register co-living property units, namely the concept of housing and shared facilities with private rooms. The minimum membership that is applied is 6 months.

Each property is also equipped with basic facilities, such as furniture, beds, wardrobes, wifi connectivity to maintenance services. Interestingly, users can also pay rental fees in installments.

The prop-tech business model is also increasingly diverse. For example, the one that has been popular before is the C2C marketplace, in the form of a portal that allows property owners to independently advertise their units and consumers can see a complete list of properties in a certain area.