Octopus leads £700,000 seed round for UniPlaces

The venture capital house invested alongside angel investors Alex Chesterman, (founder and CEO of Zoopla Property Group) and William Reeve (chairman of Graze.com, a healthy snack-box delivery company).

Chesterman and Reeve previously backed UniPlaces' maiden financing round in 2012 alongside Shilling Capital Partners, which enabled the launch of the company.

In June this year, UK-based Octopus launched its first institutional fund, which saw Octopus transferring its portfolio companies Zoopla Property Group, Graze, Calastone and Secret Escapes from the firm's Titan VCTs 1-3 vehicles to the new fund. Octopus's most recent vehicle is backed by investors such as Deutsche Bank's private equity platform DB Private Equity & Private Markets and European fund-of-funds Seligman Private Equity Select.

Company
London-based UniPlaces offers students an online booking platform to book and rent accommodation. It offers both privately and institutionally rented student accommodation in Lisbon and London.

The company launched in 2012 in Portugal, but has since moved its headquarters to London, where it currently offers around 6,000 accommodation listings.

People
Rebecca Marshall is a member of the venture team at Octopus. Ben Grech is a co-founder of Uniplaces.

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• Topics
• Consumer
• Early-stage
• UK / Ireland
• Portugal
• Octopus Investments