Crib acquires CirclePe to offer zero-deposit renting to co-living tenants

Crib, a property management platform for co-living spaces, hostels and paying guest accommodation, has acquired rent financing company CirclePe.

The acquisition will allow Crib to offer zero-deposit renting through its platform. Tenants will be able to move into properties without paying a large security deposit upfront, while operators will receive rent and deposit-linked financing in advance.

CirclePe, founded by Navan Jaiswal and Ankur Yadav, works with non-banking financial companies (NBFC) to finance tenants’ rent or deposit commitments. The amount is paid to the property operator upfront, while the tenant repays it in monthly instalments.

Crib said the deal would bring embedded finance into the rental process for managed accommodation operators already using its software.

“Deposits are the most broken part of renting in India. Tenants lock up cash they can’t use, and operators wait on money that’s already theirs. We built Crib to run the rails for co-living, and CirclePe fixes how money moves on top of them. Bringing them together means a tenant can move in with zero deposit and an operator can get paid upfront, on the same platform. That’s the future of renting we want to build,” said Sunny Garg, co-founder and CEO of Crib.

Crib provides software for property operators to manage inventory, agreements, onboarding, invoicing, collections, renewals and move-outs. The company said it works with more than 2,500 operators managing more than $1 billion in rent.

CirclePe raised nearly Rs 7.5 crore in a pre-seed funding round in May 2024 at a valuation of about Rs 35 crore. The round was led by OTP Ventures, with participation from 1947 Rise, iSeed, IIT Delhi, Venture Catalysts and other investors.

Ankur Yadav, co-founder of CirclePe, said “We started CirclePe because the deposit is a tax on moving. Tenants lose access to their own money. Joining Crib gives us the one thing a financing product needs most: scale and trust with operators who are already running their rent on the platform. Now a tenant can skip the deposit entirely and an operator gets paid upfront, on day one, on a platform they already use,” said Ankur Yadav, Co-Founder of CirclePe.

Crib said the integration would allow tenants to skip upfront deposits and enable operators to receive payments at the start of the tenancy on the same platform.

According to CirclePe’s website, it offers tenants the ability to rent homes without large security deposits, while landlords can receive advance rent payments.

The companies did not disclose the value of the acquisition.