South Africa’s student accommodation marketplace DigsConnect now boasts over a million listed beds. DigsConnect was launched in early 2018 and despite challenges brought about by the pandemic, has experienced meteoric growth. Most recently, the startup entered into an agreement with the world’s largest student accommodation website, Student.com, propelling DigsConnect.com into 30 new markets.
CEO Alexandria Procter says that in the most recent season, the company placed nearly 17 times more students than in the season prior, with booking growth at 150% week on week.
“When we founded DigsConnect, a key motivator for Greg Ramsay-Keal (COO) and I was a series of targets written on the wall of our small office space. One of these goals was to reach 1,000,000 beds on the platform by 2028.
“To have achieved this monumental number in just four years is incredible and sets the pace for our future milestones.”
Procter says the last two years have been tough to navigate.
“When COVID hit in March 2020, we had 80% cancellation rates and in the months that followed, universities remained closed and students took to studying from home. We were very lucky to raise funding in mid-2021 which helped to keep our doors open and gave us room to pivot our offering to young adults that weren’t affected by the university closures. Added to this, our partnership with student.com helped us to enter different markets, each responding to the pandemic at different stages.”
Procter says their focus will soon shift to preparation for the European and American peak seasons.
“A diversified geographic representation gives us multiple seasons a year, allowing us to bring in revenue year-round and have continual feedback cycles to continually improve our product and services.”
With several strategic placements in the DigsConnect product team, Procter says that they’ll be continually improving the overall user experience on the platform.
