Real estate developer Tripalink Corp., which builds and leases dormitory-style housing, has raised $5 million to upgrade its properties and expand into new markets.
In a March 21 announcement, the downtown-based developer said it completed a Series-A funding round, bringing its total raised to $10 million. Calin SJG Fund led the round, which included investments from San Francisco-based venture capital firm Tekton Ventures and Beijing-based K2VC Ventures. K2VC also contributed to Tripalink’s earlier fundraising.
Tripalink has raised an additional $15 million from limited partners for construction and acquisition of new properties, said Tripalink spokesman Chanron Guo.
Tripalink was founded in 2015 to develop and lease co-living apartments. City co-living is a housing model where residents share a scaled-down apartment with several roommates and shorter leases, typically three to six months. Leasing a co-living apartment entitles a renter to a private bedroom and shared common spaces and utilities with roommates they’ve typically never met before. Some co-living spaces such as Tripalink’s offer cleaning services or building events as perks.
Tripalink’s downtown headquarters operates roughly 150 co-living properties across the Culver City, Westwood, Sawtelle and East LA neighborhoods. Most of the firm’s L.A. properties are located near USC, said Guo, who noted Tripalink also operates co-living properties in Seattle, Austin, and Philadelphia.
“Compared to hotels and traditional student apartments, Tripalink’s high-quality one-stop service (will) free all our residents from chores and set their mind at ease. The co-living community environment will also offer our residents a supreme living experience,” Chief Executive Donghao Li said in a statement.
Tripalink will use the funds to fuel an expansion into Phoenix and Tempe, Ariz., as well as develop its existing co-living spaces. “We want to have our brand identity and design in (the buildings), to make our customers when they first enter our property they will realize that this property is owned by us,” Guo said.
There are few statistics on the nascent co-living industry but New York-based real estate developer WeWork Companies Inc., which operates co-working and co-living spaces across the country, told Business Insider its WeLive co-living offering generated roughly 21 percent of its 2018 revenue.
Tech reporter Samson Amore can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 556-8335. Follow him on Twitter @samsonamore.
