HUGS

Building the future of International Student Housing

https://wefunder.com/hugs

Total raised on Wefunder: 75591

Total investors: 82

Quick facts

  • 📈253% average revenue growth in August
  • 💰Over $85,000 committed in reservations pre-launch + $35,000 in side investments and grants
  • 🎓Partnership acquired with top 2 universities in San Diego
  • ⭐️Our HUGS Score extracts 60+ different criteria to make a precise creditworthiness assessment
  • 🗞Featured in SD Chamber of Commerce, International Affairs Board, and San Diego Business Journal
  • ❤️Founders have intimate first-hand experience with the problem

Team profiles

Featured investor profiles

HUGS

Building the future of International Student Housing

Funded badge
Last Funded April 2022

$75,591

raised from 82 investors
Pitch Video
Investor Panel

Investor Panel

Claudius and Todd interviewed HUGS on August 2, 2021. Play Video
Claudius Mbemba
Claudius Mbemba
CTO @ useneu.com. Alum: Techstars, Microsoft, OSU. Speaker & Tech Entrepreneur advising early-stage founders.
Todd Folk
Todd Folk
Founder/CEO of AppApp 10+ years in the hospitality industry. Serial Entrepreneur, Tobacconist, & Rum aficionado.
Strengths
says, "This is a very interesting space that ripe for disruption. The current methods never really were intended for their target consumer - so this bridges that gap."
says, "CEO has first-hand experience with this problem. International students continue to increase attendance at US universities so this problem is not going away soon. HUGS is already building partnerships with top universities, such as UCSD. Their approach of going after housing commissions to attract landlords could prove really fruitful. The team understands the value of marking here and is allocating some funds for marketing and platform development."
Advice
says, "Growth utilizing landlords will be the key to success. In many college towns there are larger complexes for students - find ways to get into those for quick growth numbers."
says, "HUGS is building a 2-sided marketplace and attracting both customers is tough. They've kind of solved the disintermediation problem by offering a utility function in the marketplace to both sides, in the form of a credit score. But attracting landlords, from an outside perspective, seems more challenging. Since students get the largest benefit (saving times & elimination of redundancies) from using HUGS, I would recommend leveraging them to acquire landlords. Make it very simple for a student to invite their leasing manager/landlord to access said student's credit rating on HUGS. Students should be their marketing for landlord acquisition."

What Investors Say

LEAD INVESTOR
Invested $2,400 this round + $5,000 previously
I invested in HUGS because I believe in their vision. As a real estate developer and investor myself, I have witnessed the lack of solutions available to international students and am confident that this is the perfect fit. Leasing to international students today often requires us landlords and property managers to jump through unnecessary hoops that can be costly, inefficient, and time-consuming. In addition to solving this elegantly and providing us access to an untapped market, the founders have built a strong, passionate team able to execute a solid business model. It takes guts to tackle such an important issue; this team definitely has what it takes to create the much-needed positive impact on millions of lives for years to come!
What People Say