Sequoia-Backed Hmlet Co-Living to Roll Out 150 Room Singapore Location

Singapore-based co-living startup Hmlet has secured its biggest location to date, according to a statement today by the company, taking on a former school in the city’s Tanjong Pagar area.

The Sequoia-backed provider of boarding houses for millennials has teamed up with a unit of Catalist-listed LHN Group to convert 150 Cantonment Road into a 150 unit residential facility, adding a pool gym and other amenities to the low-rise building south of Singapore’s urban core.

Hmlet, which expanded into Sydney in February, said at the time that the company would expand its portfolio of shared space apartments to 2,400 beds by the end of 2019.

Co-Living with a Pool

“We are excited to be announcing our largest building in Singapore dedicated entirely to co-living with established real estate players like LHN,” Yoan Kamalski, CEO of Hmlet said in a statement.

Kamalski’s latest project occupies a 76,002 square foot (7,060 square metre) site, with the former school offering 47,352 square feet of gross floor area across two separate buildings of three storeys each. The facility is around 800 metres west of the Tanjong Pagar MRT station.

The company says it will open the new space in July, presumably after adding the swimming pool, gym and an all day cafe to the facility, which served as the headquarters of Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau from 1998 to 2004, after going out of service as a school.

LHN Group’s property management subsidiary, LHN Limited had won the rights to the facility at a government tender in September last year, when it agreed to pay rent of S$123,889 per month for 150 Cantonment Road. LHN Group is chaired by Kelvin Lim, who in 1991 joined the company founded by his father Lim Hean Nerng.

Hmlet Keeps Up Expansion

In addition to its new facility in Singapore, Hmlet said in February that it plans to expand into Melbourne and Brisbane in Australia, using its approach of leasing and managing properties, rather than acquiring assets, to expand quickly across markets.

In July 2018 Hmlet had expanded into Hong Kong by acquiring competitor we r urban, and its website now lists 23 locations in Singapore, where studio rooms in the central business district rent for S$4,000 per month.

In November last year Hmlet announced that it had raised $6.5 million in a series A funding round led by Sequoia India, an affiliate of US giant Sequoia Capital. In November 2017 it had raised $1.5 million in a seed round led by Arum Investment.