Source: LifeX

Danish PropTech startup LifeX, currently operating in 6 European cities, has just announced a new funding round of 6m euros.

The recent funding round was organised through Founders, a Copenhagen-based startup studio together with Cherry Ventures, a Berlin-based VC fund, with the goal of strengthening their partnership with the PropTech and co-living company. Supplementary funds were also sourced through Væksttfonden. The funds will be used to strengthen LifeX's presence in existing and new markets, fuel product development, and accelerate the company's vision to "make anyone feel at home, anywhere in the world".

Founded in 2017 by Sune Theodorsen and Ritu Jain, LifeX helps young professionals overcome the many challenges of finding housing and growing a social network. The company achieves this through a family-style approach to co-living, featuring shared living spaces filled with high-quality designer furniture, allowing individuals to thrive in a hassle-free environment by removing common points of conflict such as chores, house maintenance and bills. LifeX also helps young professionals grow their social networks through community fostering initiatives such as events, networking opportunities and more with its embedded members from over 50 different countries.

Despite the hospitality industry being hit extremely hard during the COVID-19 crisis, the co-living operator has continued to find success thanks to its solid business model and thriving community, earning the trust of investors to further strengthen their relationship with LifeX. CEO Sune Theodorsen explains, "We have been focusing on our community of members, which is the essence of LifeX. It was really important for us to remain approachable and reactive during these unprecedented times. We were due to release a new feature in our LifeX app, which aimed to enhance communication with our members. We identified the need to accelerate development of this feature and released it during the lockdown period, allowing us to maintain a closer line of communication with our members."

Additionally, one of LifeX's key purposes is to fight loneliness. The COVID-19 crisis has supported this idea by showing that its members experienced challenges such as isolation brought on by lockdowns to a lesser extent than people in traditional housing models. "What we noticed during the crisis was that our members were very appreciative of not having to face this alone. They enjoyed spending time together, bonding and having their housemates as a support system to rely on. With millennials being coined the "loneliest generation", we hope to provide our members with a space where they can exchange, develop friendships and blossom as individuals."

As a result, Theodorsen remains very optimistic in regards to the future of co-living: "I think what we do has only become more relevant. Co-living is not just a trend, it is here to stay and will continue to grow. With the way we work shifting to a more remote model, the time and care we spend curating our living spaces and community has become a great asset for us as well as increasingly attractive for our members."With this latest capital injection, LifeX has now received close to €15 million of funding overall, as the startup heads towards raising a Series A round in the near future.

About Cherry Ventures

Cherry Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund founded and led by former entrepreneurs and focusing on seed-stage companies in B2B and B2C. Having started as angel fund, Cherry today has €325M under management and invests tickets between €500k-4M in the seed stage and up to €15M in total in a company. Cherry's founders have been involved in Zalando, Groupon and Quandoo and the fund has previously been among the first backers of Auto1, Flixbus, Tourradar, Drover etc. Cherry aims at supporting its portfolio companies in the best possible way through the entrepreneurial expertise in the team. Beyond recruiting the fund helps with its operational know-how and many other topics relevant to the portfolio. Based in Berlin, Cherry invests all across Europe and is sector-agnostic. For more information, please visit cherry.vc

About LifeX

LifeX is a pan-European network of beautiful coliving homes for young professionals. Enabling individuals to experience hassle-free and flexible living. LifeX makes settling into a new city much easier as it pre-packages everything one needs to quickly feel at home. From beautiful Nordic-style apartments in the best locations, to the convenience of weekly cleaning and flexible membership terms. Additionally, members have access to a thriving community of other young professionals living with LifeX.

LifeX currently operates co-living homes in Copenhagen, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Munich, and Vienna, with more than 350 members from 50+ countries.

LifeX was founded in Copenhagen in June 2017 by product veterans Sune Theodorsen and Ritu Jain, both early team members of the Danish fintech success story, Tradeshift. Previously, they both served as Heads of Product at Airtame and Peakon, respectively. Lifex has 30 employees with offices in Copenhagen, Berlin, London, Vienna, and Paris.

LifeX is funded by Founders, Cherry Ventures, TriplePoint Capital, and Vækstfonden and was a winner of Copenhagen City Business Awards in 2018.