StudentCrowd, a student accommodation review platform and data provider, has raised £7m in a Series A round led by YFM Equity Partners, with participation from Mercia Ventures. The funding will support product development and international expansion.
Founded by Paul Humphreys and Pete Sisson, StudentCrowd helps students make decisions about where to study and live through verified reviews, while also providing subscription-based data to the purpose-built student accommodation sector. The platform supports operators, investors and advisers with data used to inform pricing, supply and demand, and performance decisions.
The business has helped over 14 million students and is trusted by the 30 largest operators in the United Kingdom. Its data platform is used across the sector as operators and investors manage increasing complexity in pricing, supply and demand, alongside rising student expectations.
The investment will enable StudentCrowd to continue developing its product and scale its data platform across Europe and the United States. It follows an earlier £2.5 million funding round in 2023 backed by Mercia Ventures through the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II.
Our mission has always been to bring transparency to the student accommodation market – both for the students and for the sector. On the student side, we want every student to be able to choose where they study and live with confidence, powered by authentic, verified reviews from people with real experience. On the industry side, we have built a dataset that gives operators, investors and advisers the independent, accurate data they need to make optimal decisions. This funding enables us to invest in the platform to better support decision making for the students and the sector.
We first backed StudentCrowd in 2023 and the team have impressed us at every stage since. They have delivered consistently against their targets, bolstered the business with some important hires, and grown the platform into something the sector genuinely relies on. We are delighted to be continuing the journey alongside YFM.
What has really stood out to us is that Paul, Pete and the team consistently deliver on what they say they will do. They have built a genuinely impressive business on limited capital, and the quality of the product shows in the way customers talk about it and the impressive company metrics. The international expansion is not a speculative bet – existing customers are already pulling them into new markets, which tells you everything about the strength of the underlying proposition. We’re excited to partner with the management team and Mercia to support the next chapter of that journey.
The Midlands Engine Investment Fund II supports innovative businesses across the Midlands, and this investment in StudentCrowd will help accelerate the company’s expansion into international markets across Europe and the USA. Since the first round of funding in 2023, the business has made significant progress in its growth journey, and we look forward to seeing it achieve even greater success in the years ahead.
