New Reporter
10-11-21, 07:24
Oxley's exec director invests in co-living startup The Assembly Place
Nov 09, 2021
SINGAPORE-BASED co-living startup The Assembly Place (TAP) on Tuesday raised S$5.5 million in a seed round led by Oxley Holding's executive director and deputy chief executive Eric Low See Ching.
Other angel investors who joined the round are:
* Kemmy Tan, chief executive of real estate developer M+S;
* Mohamed Ismail, chief executive of PropNex Singapore;
* Wendy Tang, group managing director of Knight Frank Singapore;
* Bruce Lye and Ken Low, managing partners of SRI Ltd;
* Shaun Poh, executive director of capital markets at Cushman & Wakefield;
* Dennis Goh, co-founder of startup hungrygowhere.
Founded in 2019, TAP has more than 350 rooms across the city-state; 95 per cent of these rooms are under management contracts, under which operators take a percentage of revenue to spruce up and manage the apartments.
Co-living operators are increasingly adopting management contracts as a mode of operation, following the crumbling of Sequoia-backed co-living operator Hmlet, which cut back on operations this year after an overly rapid expansion and a cash crunch.
Many co-living operators like Hmlet had originally started with a straight lease model, under which they signed long-term leases with landlords and reconfigured apartments for subletting for the short term at a premium. But this model proved unsustainable in the long run.
Co-founder and chief executive Eugene Lim said that TAP is exploring management contracts for several commercial buildings, including older buildings, in hopes of turning these into a co-working or co-sharing model to "increase yield back to these asset owners".
The co-living startup has 200 more rooms in the pipeline. One of the key projects in its pipeline is a 171-bed co-living hostel in Little India. Three other projects comprise service apartments and residential units in River Valley, Lavender and East Coast.
With the addition of these 4 assets, TAP will have close to 550 rooms across 16 co-living apartment blocks; it will be on track to have 1,000 rooms by the second quarter of next year, said Lim. It is also planning to open a row of historical conservation shophouses in Jalan Besar this month.
The fresh funds will be used to improve its mobile app platform and bring in new top executives.
"We are mindful not to create an app for the purpose of creating one. The app cannot be a white elephant that the members don't use. It needs to streamline our internal processes and collate important analytical data to understand the demographic of our members… so that we can create better products and living experiences for our members."
Nov 09, 2021
SINGAPORE-BASED co-living startup The Assembly Place (TAP) on Tuesday raised S$5.5 million in a seed round led by Oxley Holding's executive director and deputy chief executive Eric Low See Ching.
Other angel investors who joined the round are:
* Kemmy Tan, chief executive of real estate developer M+S;
* Mohamed Ismail, chief executive of PropNex Singapore;
* Wendy Tang, group managing director of Knight Frank Singapore;
* Bruce Lye and Ken Low, managing partners of SRI Ltd;
* Shaun Poh, executive director of capital markets at Cushman & Wakefield;
* Dennis Goh, co-founder of startup hungrygowhere.
Founded in 2019, TAP has more than 350 rooms across the city-state; 95 per cent of these rooms are under management contracts, under which operators take a percentage of revenue to spruce up and manage the apartments.
Co-living operators are increasingly adopting management contracts as a mode of operation, following the crumbling of Sequoia-backed co-living operator Hmlet, which cut back on operations this year after an overly rapid expansion and a cash crunch.
Many co-living operators like Hmlet had originally started with a straight lease model, under which they signed long-term leases with landlords and reconfigured apartments for subletting for the short term at a premium. But this model proved unsustainable in the long run.
Co-founder and chief executive Eugene Lim said that TAP is exploring management contracts for several commercial buildings, including older buildings, in hopes of turning these into a co-working or co-sharing model to "increase yield back to these asset owners".
The co-living startup has 200 more rooms in the pipeline. One of the key projects in its pipeline is a 171-bed co-living hostel in Little India. Three other projects comprise service apartments and residential units in River Valley, Lavender and East Coast.
With the addition of these 4 assets, TAP will have close to 550 rooms across 16 co-living apartment blocks; it will be on track to have 1,000 rooms by the second quarter of next year, said Lim. It is also planning to open a row of historical conservation shophouses in Jalan Besar this month.
The fresh funds will be used to improve its mobile app platform and bring in new top executives.
"We are mindful not to create an app for the purpose of creating one. The app cannot be a white elephant that the members don't use. It needs to streamline our internal processes and collate important analytical data to understand the demographic of our members… so that we can create better products and living experiences for our members."