Hmlet founder Yoan Kamalsky returns as APAC CEO and eyes the HDB rental market in Singapore

Singapore’s co-living market is a far cry from its early days in the 2010s. At the time, the local market was highly fragmented with numerous start-ups competing for dominance over the rental and flexible housing market. It was startups like Hamlet, co-founded by Yoan Kamalsky in 2016, as one of several emerging players attempting to gain a foothold in Singapore’s competitive short-term residential leasing market. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic fully hit our shores in 2019, Hamlet was one of the more recognized co-living operators in Singapore. After only three years, the company was managing over 1,500 rooms in Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney. In total, the company completed three different funding rounds, ranging from its US$1.5 million seed funding in 2017, to a Series A round in 2018 that attracted US$6.5 million, and a Series B round in July 2019 that raised US$40 million. But when the pandemic hit, the company struggled to keep itself above the rising waters, which…