Student.com Powers into Pole Position for 2025
Rupert Spiegelberg, CEO

Rupert Spiegelberg, CEO of Student.com discusses Student.com’s game changing new partnership with the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls (“VCARB”) Formula 1 team which is set to connect the student housing industry with the high octane world of motorsport, reaching a new generation of students and fans worldwide. Rupert also shares how Student.com has revolutionized the booking experience for students through its new fully automated, AI-powered booking platform that drastically reduces booking times from 5 days to just 5 minutes.

For over a decade, Student.com has been at the forefront of innovation in the student housing market, matching millions of students with accommodations worldwide. With more than 2.5 million beds across 400 cities in 32 countries, Student.com is proud to provide a vast array of housing options wherever students need them.  Since 2011, Student.com has continuously improved its platform, driven by a passion for better serving students and their housing providers. Through cutting-edge technology and a global team committed to excellence, Student.com has advanced both the student experience and the tools that support its partners. This blend of human expertise and AI-driven precision is what sets Student.com apart.

GSL News: We were very excited to hear the news about Student.com’s new partnership with the VCARB Formula 1 team, can you tell us more about it?

Yes, it's very exciting. We’ve been announcing it from the rooftops in the last 24 hours, and the feedback, particularly from landlords and investors, has been extraordinary. It’s really being received as something quite unique and quite groundbreaking. I think it is because a lot of the sports sponsorship deals that have been inked in recent years have been B2B style and primarily with what I would call “grown up companies”, which are perhaps less exciting and not focused on Gen Z, so this is something quite new.

GSL News: Can you tell us about what drove the partnership, and what it means for the Student.com brand and global reach going forward? 

Just under a year ago we sat down and thought about how we could really turbo boost what we're doing at Student.com. We have tens of thousands of landlords on our platform across the world, in the USA, Europe, UK, Asia, including China, India, Australia, Japan etc., as well as millions of students coming to the site from all over the world. What we really wanted was a partnership that could extend that global reach. The more we thought about it, the more we saw how the world of motorsport seemed to be a perfect match on a number of levels. 

Formula 1 has an audience reach of about 1.4 billion people – I think it's second only to the Olympics and soccer, or football, depending on where you come from. From that point of view, it gave us fantastic reach. Around 750 million people watch each race. Beyond that, they've got incredible reach on social media and across all platforms. The numbers are huge, and that was a fantastic starting point. 

We then looked at what sort of teams would be appropriate for Student.com to partner with, but all roads seemed to lead to the VCARB team, mainly because they are the most Gen Z focused team on the grid with the youngest fan base.  They are really looking to build up a sponsorship base which is focused on that demographic, and you can see it reflected in some of our co-sponsors. When we started talking to the VCARB team, it became clear this was the right partnership for us because they clearly wanted to focus on the Gen Z audience and Student.com is slap bang in the middle of that target group. So while we are super excited to be partnering with such a great brand, I think the feeling is mutual. 

The other aspect is the values that exemplify Formula 1 racing – passion, excitement, performance, excellence – these all tie into the aspirations and ambitions of Student.com. It fit in so many ways that it just felt like a perfect partnership. It is a first in the student housing industry, so, once again, Student.com is leading the way. The partnership will accelerate traffic – delivering the largest, most relevant and engaged domestic and international student audience, but it is about more than just global visibility. It is also about student registrations, commercial relationships, access and scale, and putting Student.com alongside the world’s biggest names. 

GSL News: Are there any specific initiatives we can expect from the new partnership going forward?

Absolutely. This is a multi-year relationship with the VCARB race team. We are building an activation plan, so get ready for targeted digital campaigns, student brand activations and one-of-a-kind events across the F1 and Esports calendars.

The Student.com name will be on the car – it’s going to be very visual for us.  We had the big launch of the new cars and their new livery at the O2 Arena on 18^th February. Formula 1 is 75 years old this year, and so for the first time, they brought together all the teams and drivers under one roof, where they showed all the new livery and branding on the new cars. The season starts in mid-March in Melbourne, so we are working on a number of activation campaigns building excitement within the student community, not only for Formula 1, but also for Student.com.

Our dedicated micro site is the place to find information on some of the activities as the year progresses. There will also be a lot of things going on across our social channels – across  Instagram and TikTok. China is a massive market for us, so we also have large Chinese social channels like Red and Baidu, and WeChat.

GSL News: Student.com recently launched an AI powered Instant Booking platform. How does this improve the experience for students and providers?

The short answer is that it drastically reduces booking times – from 5 days to just 5 minutes - thanks to a fully automated platform. By automating the booking journey, we significantly reduce booking fees by up to 75%, driving more traffic to listings while lowering costs. This innovation keeps us at the forefront of student housing solutions, by harnessing AI, to create a faster, more flexible, and more efficient experience for students and landlords. It is just the beginning of several new offerings and innovations.

But if I take a step back for a moment – I joined the company about a year ago, and a large part of when you join new companies, is thinking long and hard about what we're here for, what we're doing, what our long-term goals are, and how we want the company to evolve. So, I was thinking very much about the vision, and how that translates into what we do on a day-to-day basis, and the proposition that we are putting out there for students and for landlords.

Student.com’s goal over the long term is to support students on their entire journey, and accommodation is right at the beginning of that journey and at the heart of everything that we do. We want to make it as easy and painless as possible for students to establish their lives in what for most of them is their first time being away from home. 

I’ve spent 20 years building technology companies in a number of different sectors, and the key thing that we have in our head when we try to do that is about removing friction in every part of the process.  When I looked at the student sector, having come from financial services and healthcare, it struck me that there is no way that anyone would think it was appropriate if it took them 5 or 6 days to book a flight or to book a hotel room. Yet, this is what happens in student housing.

There is so much friction in all parts of that process, whether it's finding the right place or making the booking or processing the payments. What we have done is look at each part of that process and how to take all the friction out of it. We have completely revamped our technology platform and our website which we launched at the end of October, and we are going all in. 

As part of this evolution, we are in the process of migrating partners to one of Student.com’s new products (List, Book or Connect) under a new subscription-based model. Our new automated booking services (Book and Connect) will offer significant benefits for both landlords and students in terms of time savings and an improved experience. We have also introduced a lead generation product (List) that will deliver highly qualified, verified students to student housing properties. 

GSL News: How does your platform help with scaling and tailoring services more effectively?

I'm glad you asked that, because it's all about scale. Once you take the friction out of the process and move all the individual pieces of the pie away from a human intervention, then it enables you to scale at a rapid pace. 

It’s all about gaining access to online inventory, real-time pricing and booking systems and online contracting systems. We are still maintaining a customer service team to aid and support where it's necessary, but we are in that process of migrating people to that full online experience in the same way that you don't expect to speak to a booking agent when you're booking a flight or hotel.

Trying to tackle and solve this problem was, to some degree, motivated by the fact that I have a daughter who just went away to university last year and I watched her go through the process of finding a room. She was spending lots of time on the phone and coming back to me and asking me about prices and contracts. It took about two weeks to get it locked down – it made me feel that there's just such a massive opportunity here. I know that all she wanted to say was, “Dad, I just booked this, send me your credit card, you need to pay for the deposit,” because everything else she does is instantly doable online. 

GSL News: Where do you see Student.com in the next five years? 

I love that question because I have got such big ambitions for Student.com and I think accommodation is just the beginning. There are approximately 240 million students in the world, and that is growing at double digit percentage rates every year. Depending on how you want to measure that economy, it is probably about a $1 trillion economy. That’s effectively a G7 economy in itself. Finding accommodation is just the first step for students – once you've booked, what kind of other services and support do you need when launching your life outside the home? I think there is a fantastic opportunity for Student.com to support and be a part of that end-to-end journey for the students. We’re really just at the beginning!