When Luke Nolan was living in Shanghai in the early 2000s, his Chinese friends and neighbors kept asking him to help their children who were going to study in the U.K. find places to live. That inspired Nolan to create Student.com, a London-based company that lets the increasing number of students studying outside their home country shop for accommodations.
On Thursday, Student.com said it has received $60 million in funding from Dubai-based VY Capital and a group of investors that include Horizons Ventures, the technology investment arm of Chinese billionaire Li Ka-Shing’s fund and London-based startup adviser Expa. Also participating in the funding round are Spotify’s co-founders, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, as well as Hugo Barra, a former Google executive who helped run the Android operating system and is now at Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi Corp. In the upcoming academic year, Student.com will boost its listed properties to 426 cities around the world from about 300 now. It will use the funds from the investment to grow in new markets and expand in the U.S., the Middle East and Latin America. The cash infusion will also allow the company to make key hires, Nolan said.
 

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