Luxury Quorum Club sells 5% stake to Nikhil Kamath’s Gruhas in series A round
Quorum Club Private Ltd, the parent company of luxury members-only club, The Quorum, has closed an undisclosed pre-series A funding round for a 5% divestment in stake led by Gruhas, a venture founded in 2021 by Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha and Abhijeet Pai of Puzzolana. Gruhas also focuses on early-stage, venture, and debt investments in proptech, cleantech, media and entertainment sectors. The club’s existing shareholders including Alok Oberoi, Gurmeet Nihal Singh, Sabre Advisors, Shon Randhawa, Sattva Group, and Karanpal Singh have also participated in the round from whom it had also raised another undisclosed friends and family round of investment in 2016 when it was first set up.
With the new fund raise, its next target markets include Bengaluru, Goa, and another sixth club in Delhi over the next few years. The company is also looking to expand its co-working portfolio under The Business Quarter (TBQ) brand, offering hospitality-first working spaces co-located with its clubs. The Hyderabad club will include a 110-seat premium co-working facility and its Mumbai club will expand from 198 seats to 451 seats.
District150, a venture for meetings and events, also has a pipeline of 8-10 assets in various stages of development within the next five years, partnering with leading institutional developers. The first asset in Hyderabad is a partnership with Sattva Group and Blackstone India Real Estate.
The company first began operations in 2018 with the launch of its first members’ club in Gurugram, operating under Quorum Club LLP. In 2021, it expanded to Mumbai, taking over operations of another former private members club ‘The A’, a 40,000 square foot workspace and social club in Lower Parel’s One World Centre. This marked their shift towards a broader lifestyle hospitality concept. This month, the company has also set up its third club over 80,000 sq ft, in Hyderabad, and in total has 2.2 lakh sq. ft. of operational assets across cities.
India has just a select network of luxury clubs, catering to a discerning clientele. These spaces, like Quorum or the Soho House, The Indus Club in Mumbai; Regent Club Bengaluru, all offer social gathering, business networking, and high-end amenities. Beyond metropolitan clubs, high-end residential communities like The Camellias Club by DLF in Gurugram also have an exclusive club within its 1.4 lakh sq ft confines but for its residents only.
In 2023, the company legally became Quorum Club Pvt. Ltd. Looking beyond members’ clubs, it also launched District150, in the same year. Their first development under this brand is in Hyderabad, where it partnered with local realty firm Devbhumi Realtors Pvt. Ltd. (owned by Sattva Group and Blackstone India Real Estate). Quorum Club also operates a 70,000 sq ft club within the city’s Knowledge City development, alongside the same ownership group.
Vivek Narain, the company’s co-founder & CEO, told Mint that the fundraise will prepare it for further expansion for the next two years. “Our business is at an inflection point and this is a pre-institutional round. Our business is very profitable and we have been very cash efficient.” In a conversation in 2022, Narain had said the company had put aside about ₹80-100 crore for its expansion till 2027. The company spends about ₹10,000-11,000 per sq ft, and that does not include land and building and super structures of its clubs.
Narain added that there is a huge demand for good meeting and events infrastructure venues led by wedding demand across cities. Both its formats are also available to add hotel rooms for travellers to stay at and that could be another expansion avenue the company will look into in the coming years.
The company’s investors are looking at the heightened potential of consumption in the coming years as the main factor of investment. Abhijeet Pai, co-founder and partner of Gruhas, said consumption is currently at an inflection point in the country. “We also think proptech needs to get much smarter, inclusive and community-centric. These will be places where people are going to get pulled to become a large community and an intellectual horsepower. We think this company is solving for the ‘haves’ who are the 1-5 million people in India looking for a luxury members-only club. Its District150, which is open to potentially 50 million people, builds an even larger community, making this even more interesting for us to invest in,” he said.
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Published: 12 Mar 2024, 06:30 AM IST
Ganesh
http://ganesh@finplay.inFinance enthusiast, Mutual fund expert.